We can't have those fly by night voucher schools wasting our money....
susupply
ay?slug=seattleschools12m&date=20021012&query=seattle+public+schools+million
<<---------------quote--------------------
Seattle School District's financial woes grow
By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter
Seattle public school administrators have discovered that accounting
problems are not limited to the districtwide budget and a $33 million
shortfall, but also involve erroneous accounting of spending by individual
schools.
The district has told schools not to spend cash carried forward from the
last school year until administrators determine that the amounts of money
shown in those accounts are accurate.
Administrators have learned that some schools' "carry-forward" accounts are
inflated because they do not reflect all expenditures made from those funds.
Superintendent Joseph Olchefske said yesterday he doesn't know how much
money may be involved. "That's really the work of the next month," he said
yesterday.
Confusion over the carry-forward accounts is the latest wrinkle in a budget
crisis revealed by district officials a week ago.
An internal investigation into accounting problems revealed that $7 million
in state money for vocational education was counted twice, $5 million in
2000-01 costs were accounted for in the wrong fiscal year, and payroll costs
exceeded the budget by $7 million.
The district has covered last year's $21 million shortfall by spending cash
reserves, including funds that had been earmarked for debt payments.
Administrators are developing a plan for addressing a projected $12 million
shortfall this year. The plan will be presented to the School Board Oct. 23.
Any problem with the individual schools' accounts is not expected to add to
the shortfall, Olchefske said. But it's a new problem that the district
needs to fix, and it's likely to result in some schools realizing they have
less money than they thought.
One likely element of the recovery plan was outlined to principals Thursday
afternoon: reduced funding to any school whose enrollment has fallen below
projected levels.
Under a "hold-harmless" policy in effect for the past several years, the
district has shielded schools from drops in student enrollment. Schools are
funded on a per-capita basis, but the district has cushioned them by
providing extra, "hold-harmless money" in the event of an unanticipated
decline in enrollment.
Hold-harmless funding is limited to $50,000 per school - roughly the amount
generated by 20 students, and close to the average salary and benefits of
one teacher. Principals have been told they may lose all such payments this
year so the district can use the money to help close this year's $12 million
shortfall.
The hold-harmless policy, adopted in the late 1990s when the district went
to student-based funding, was never intended to be permanent. "The feeling
was we fund kids, why should we fund empty seats?" Olchefske said.
He said hold-harmless payments are believed to total between $1 million and
$2 million per year.
At Madrona K-8 School, where staff is waiting to find out whether
carry-forward funds will be reduced, Principal Rickie Malone said cutbacks
could affect supplies and field trips - but jobs are not at risk.
"What we are all doing now is just gathering information," Malone said.
"That's what we need before we can decide whether we're going to be
depressed or not."
McClure Middle School Principal Kathy Bledsoe likened carry-forward funds to
a savings account. "Now we have to look at what we actually have and take a
look at how much of that can be put into this year's budget," she said.
Bledsoe and several other principals praised the superintendent for meeting
with them in candid discussions of the district's financial problems.
To balance the 2001-02 budget, the district is spending $7 million of
reserves and $14 million of funds that had been set aside to repay loans for
energy upgrades and other capital bonds.
Administrators plan to replenish the district's financial reserves with
$11.5 million earned from sale of the former Logistics Center south of
downtown.
The district diversion of debt-payment funds now to help cover the shortfall
raises the possibility that administrators in future years will have to tap
the general fund that supports schools in order to pay down the debt on
capital projects.
As the district struggles to repay various debts, Olchefske said more
surplus properties may be put up for sale. School officials have begun
marketing the old headquarters and computer-center properties on Lower Queen
Anne, the Northend Annex near Jackson Park and the former Briarcliff School
in Magnolia. Olchefske said the district may also sell the former Maple Leaf
School.
-------------------------endquote--------------------->>
David Lloyd-Jones
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2002/10/10/1011home.html
While 15-bedroom mansions, massive swimming pools and oceanfront views
don't come cheap (see "Build Your Own Mansion In Five Minutes Or Less"),
a lot more hubris than economics goes into pricing a house at this
range. For the past two years, the house that topped our list, Triarc
(nyse: TRY - news - people ) Chairman Nelson Peltz's Palm Beach
estate, has listed for $75 million. Since the home didn't sell when the
market was much stronger, it seems unrealistic that it would move now.
Of course, unlike most Americans, Peltz, who is ranked No. 255 on the
Forbes list of the 400 Richest Americans and has an estimated fortune of
$915 million, can probably afford to wait.
Not everyone can, though. Some of the owners of the homes on our current
list may need the cash; their real estate is among their most valuable
assets, and they'll even risk taking what in most cases will be whopping
capital gains hits. One newcomer to our list is the $37 million
Manhattan townhouse of Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione, whose company,
General Media, has been flirting with bankruptcy. Another is the East
Hampton estate of Chris Whittle--founder and chairman of struggling
education company Edison Schools (nasdaq: EDSN - news - people )--which
has recently been placed on the market for $45 million.
susupply
"David Lloyd-Jones" <dlloy...@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:3DAE1557...@rogers.com...
> From the current Forbes article The Most Expensive Homes In America at
> http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2002/10/10/1011home.html
>
> While 15-bedroom mansions, massive swimming pools and oceanfront views
> don't come cheap
Thanks for the alert, David but I'm not in that market (yet). Still have
problems meeting the monthly mortgage payment for the Sullivan Compound.
But, As Paul O'Neill said, The Genius of American Capitalism; losers go
under eventually. Too bad the same discipline is absent in public school
districts.
Stephen J. Fromm
> http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/displ
> ay?slug=seattleschools12m&date=20021012&query=seattle+public+schools+million
>
> <<---------------quote--------------------
> Seattle School District's financial woes grow
[snip]
Given that any accounting problems in public school systems are
dwarfed by those in the Pentagon, why shouldn't your logic dictate
that individual taxpayers like myself be able to divert Federal income
tax $$ destined to the military rathole to a "military voucher"?
Best,
sjfromm
Grinch
Fromm) wrote:
>"susupply" <susu...@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:<aojqip$hav$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>...
>> http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/displ
>> ay?slug=seattleschools12m&date=20021012&query=seattle+public+schools+million
>>
>> <<---------------quote--------------------
>> Seattle School District's financial woes grow
>
>[snip]
>
>Given that any accounting problems in public school systems are
>dwarfed by those in the Pentagon,
Hardly. When the NYC public schools were audited by Coopers & Lybrand
a few years ago, at a time when they had an $8 billion budget, more
than $1 billion was unaccounted for ($1,000 per student). They've
since been rewarded with a budget increase to about $12 billion.
Of course, it's not just the public schools and the Pentagon, it's
govenment in general. Federal agencies from the Agriculture Department
to NASA have "unauditable" books.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/14/politics/14ACCO.html
State goverments generally are worse. And if you read the NCES
accounting statements for public school districts, they are worse yet.
And *that* is with the government giving itself a *huge* break --
letting itself use cash accounting that would put any private business
owner in jail. Cash basis accounting is illegal for businesses that
have inventories and revenue exceeding $1 million -- which the
government does. ;-)
Overall, it is very striking how government strives to protect
citizens who might voluntarily invest in a private business from the
risk of losing money through accounting shenanigans, to the point of
putting shenanigers in jail; while the risk that citizens who are
compelled to support it through taxes might incur similar costs seems
entirely less troubling to it.
As you say, the Defense Dept. has thrown away through bogus accounting
amounts hugely larger than did Enron -- and so has the Dept. of Health
and Humans Services and a great many other goverment agencies, and
school boards and the like, in proportion to their size.
So where's the Enron-like outrage?
>why shouldn't your logic dictate
>that individual taxpayers like myself be able to divert Federal income
>tax $$ destined to the military rathole to a "military voucher"?
Because national defense is a public good and education is a private
good.
"Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one
person is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is
therefore said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's
consumption of the good does not reduce its availability to anyone
else
"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
same unit."
-- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
Money spent to provide national defense for one person in the nation
necessarily does so for everyone else in the nation as well. That
makes it well nigh impossible to provide national defense by having
individuals pay for their separate individual portions of it by
voluntarily bidding cash or vouchers to competing suppliers of it.
Thus, using compulsory taxes to pay a monopoly government supplier,
however inefficient it may be and however many billions it may be
unable to account for, is the only option. There is no alternative.
OTOH, money spent to provide a classroom and teacher for a class of
children serves only those children. If you want to teach an
additional class of children you have to pay more money for those
particular children. This makes it entirely possible to have many
different suppliers of school services (as in fact there are), and for
purchasers of school services to select from among competing suppliers
and pay according to the perceived value of the services with cash
and/or vouchers (as in fact many do).
So if one is in fact using a monopoly government supplier of education
that can't account for large amounts of the money it receives, and
which is inefficient and provides service of a quality that many find
deficient, there is no reason at all to not consider the many other
possible ways of providing such services that are possible.
In fact, I'd think one would be morally obligated to so so. For the
children's sake, if not the taxpayers'.
>
>Best,
>
>sjfromm
Stephen J. Fromm
Yeah. Too bad the same discipline is absent in the US military.
David Lloyd-Jones
> Because national defense is a public good and education is a private
> good.
>
> "Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one
> person is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is
> therefore said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's
> consumption of the good does not reduce its availability to anyone
> else
> "A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
> person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
> same unit."
> -- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
>
> Money spent to provide national defense for one person in the nation
> necessarily does so for everyone else in the nation as well. That
> makes it well nigh impossible to provide national defense by having
> individuals pay for their separate individual portions of it by
> voluntarily bidding cash or vouchers to competing suppliers of it.
>
> Thus, using compulsory taxes to pay a monopoly government supplier,
> however inefficient it may be and however many billions it may be
> unable to account for, is the only option. There is no alternative.
>
> OTOH, money spent to provide a classroom and teacher for a class of
> children serves only those children.
It may be true that the children in any parrticular classroom benefit
from their education -- as the people in any particular place may
benefit from defence.
This, however, is not the only set of beneficiaries: education is a
public good precisely because most of the benefit of any bunch of
children being literate, numerate, and marginally socialized goes to the
larger group of people around them.
The "consumers," i.e. the beneficiaries, of education are everybody who
lives with the formerly ignorant, not just the educated themselves.
That Americans are able to lose sight of this fact is probably one of
the main reasons America has -- along with its many great virtues --
such a sharp edge of savagery about it.
-dlj.
Grinch
>larger group of people around them....
Geeze, David, "public good" does not mean "good for the public", so
that something that is good for the public it is a public good.
I mean, I expected that sort of stuff from the misc.eders, not a
sci.econer.
What makes an item a public good is -- looking all the way back up to
the dictionary definition provided above -- "non-rival consumption".
But if you want to argue with the dictionary, be my guest.
BTW, what you are talking about is an "externality". You will find it
under "E".
>The "consumers," i.e. the beneficiaries, of education are everybody who
>lives with the formerly ignorant, not just the educated themselves.
Right. And if I eat a healthy and nutritious diet I am not the only
"consumer, i.e. beneficiary" of that either -- if you want to equate
beneficiaries with consumers.
All of society benefits because I will be stronger, less susceptible
to disease (and thus will consume fewer medical resources), less
likely to transmit disease to others, a better worker, I will live a
longer life so my work will contribute more to the welfare of others
cumulatively, and so on.
This does not make food a *public good*. Geeze.
And it certainly does not mean that food and education, since they are
a public good like national defense, can only be provided by a
monopoly government supplier as is the case with national defense,
which was the issue under discussion -- which you somehow managed to
overlook in your rush to criticize others' faulty perceptions.
>That Americans are able to lose sight of this fact is probably one of
>the main reasons America has -- along with its many great virtues --
>such a sharp edge of savagery about it.
And what is it that explains Canadians' apparent inability to deal
with dictionary definitions?
> -dlj./
susupply
"Stephen J. Fromm" <stephe...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:b4cc5e7c.02101...@posting.google.com...
> > But, As Paul O'Neill said, The Genius of American Capitalism; losers go
> > under eventually. Too bad the same discipline is absent in public
school
> > districts.
>
> Yeah. Too bad the same discipline is absent in the US military.
The only serious economist I know to have modeled a competitive defense
industry (and in a very limited way) is David Friedman. Is that what you
are talking about?
susupply
"Grinch" <oldn...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:ceauqugq08e3c5kp1...@4ax.com...
> Geeze, David, "public good" does not mean "good for the public", so
> that something that is good for the public it is a public good.
>
> I mean, I expected that sort of stuff from the misc.eders, not a
> sci.econer.
>
> What makes an item a public good is -- looking all the way back up to
> the dictionary definition provided above -- "non-rival consumption".
>
> But if you want to argue with the dictionary, be my guest.
>
> BTW, what you are talking about is an "externality". You will find it
> under "E".
And, as David Friedman has pointed out several times here, it is not clear
that the externality is positive. The better educated people are usually
the better rent-seekers.
David Lloyd-Jones
>
> Geeze, David, "public good" does not mean "good for the public", so
> that something that is good for the public it is a public good.
>
Quite right, no that's not what it means. The essence of a public good
is simply that the beneficiaries are not all individuals who can be
charged at the point of delivery.
Air pollution is a negative public good. Education is a positive one.
-dlj.
David Lloyd-Jones
>
> And what is it that explains Canadians' apparent inability to deal
> with dictionary definitions?
>
>
A quick reminder, the definition OldNasty supplied, and which I accept, was:
>>> "Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one
>>>person is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is
>>>therefore said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's
>>>consumption of the good does not reduce its availability to anyone
>>>else
>>> "A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
>>>person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
>>>same unit."
>>> -- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
This is precisely the most salient quality of education -- and why it
was generally the first or second thing, often before defence, to be
financed by the public. Education itself, as well as its general
benefits, accrues not merely to the schooled but to everybody around them.
Standing armies only date back to Philip of Macedon (Geez but Adam Smith
is fun), but public financing of schools predates that by at least a
thousand years in the Tigris-Euphrates.
-dlj.
David Lloyd-Jones
>
> But, As Paul O'Neill said, The Genius of American Capitalism; losers go
> under eventually. Too bad the same discipline is absent in public school
> districts.
>
Even a blind hog finds an acorn sometimes, and Patrick is right that
competition has something to teach us about education.
The reason you can't discipline teachers and school administrators is
that nobody wants their jobs. No competition.
Now if you made it an aim that on average the teacher would be the
smartest person in the classroom, and the school administrators should
be more competent on average than the guys who run gas stations -- and
if in consequence you saw the sense in paying these people at the 98th
percentile of salaries, rather than at half the union wage of prison
guards -- then you'd have some competition for teaching positions.
Almost the only scientifically known fact about education is the one
established by Coleman, that teachers' native ability, as measured by
elementary tests of vocablary, is reflected in students' results years
after the schooling took place.
Surely the policy implication is obvious: pay teachers enough that you
get the people you want lining up to be teachers.
The reason Edison Schools is a stoo-pid idea is not that there's
anything wrong with private schools, however financed. Whittle's problem
is that he's competing in a market where he has to replace mediocre
crentialled teachers with mediocre, or worse, uncredentialled teachers.
These's something -- something very small -- to be said for this
strategy: getting a teaching credential probably rots the brain, so
Edison's catch-basin of failed insurance salesmen, construction-reject
weaklings, unwanted Anglo taxi-drivers, and so forth, may very well be a
better bunch than are teachers and administrators on the whole. Still, I
don't think that's quite the educational competition I ever wanted my
children's futures to depend on.
-dlj.
Stephen J. Fromm
No, I'm talking about your lack of ability to reason.
Stephen J. Fromm
> And it certainly does not mean that food and education, since they are
> a public good like national defense, can only be provided by a
> monopoly government supplier as is the case with national defense,
Why is that the case?
[snip]
Best,
sjfromm
Stephen J. Fromm
> that something that is good for the public it is a public good.
>
> I mean, I expected that sort of stuff from the misc.eders, not a
> sci.econer.
>
> What makes an item a public good is -- looking all the way back up to
> the dictionary definition provided above -- "non-rival consumption".
>
> But if you want to argue with the dictionary, be my guest.
>
> BTW, what you are talking about is an "externality". You will find it
> under "E".
>
> >The "consumers," i.e. the beneficiaries, of education are everybody who
> >lives with the formerly ignorant, not just the educated themselves.
>
> Right. And if I eat a healthy and nutritious diet I am not the only
> "consumer, i.e. beneficiary" of that either -- if you want to equate
> beneficiaries with consumers.
>
> All of society benefits because I will be stronger, less susceptible
> to disease (and thus will consume fewer medical resources), less
> likely to transmit disease to others, a better worker, I will live a
> longer life so my work will contribute more to the welfare of others
> cumulatively, and so on.
>
> This does not make food a *public good*. Geeze.
"...less likely to transmit disease to others..."
How is this aspect not a public good? It is both nonrival and
nonexcludable.
Likewise, the *particular* aspect of public education that DLJ was
presumably referring to---namely, that having a literate public is a
prerequisite for not living in a 3rd world shithole---appears to be
both nonrival and nonexcludable.
David Friedman
stephe...@verizon.net (Stephen J. Fromm) wrote:
> Likewise, the *particular* aspect of public education that DLJ was
> presumably referring to---namely, that having a literate public is a
> prerequisite for not living in a 3rd world shithole---appears to be
> both nonrival and nonexcludable.
It's worth remembering that what matters for efficiency is what happens
on the margin. It's not at all clear that, on the margin, your better
education makes me better off. As with many other things, there are both
positive and negative externalities. You might do a better job of voting
for the good of our country--or of supporting laws that transfer wealth
from me to you--for example.
There are lots of things that are private goods with some externality.
But since we have a very good mechanism for producing private goods and
very poor political mechanisms for producing public goods, it makes
sense to treat such "slightly public" goods as private goods unless the
externality if very large.
susupply
"David Lloyd-Jones" <dlloy...@rogers.com>
still scavenging for a legitimate argument,
wrote in message news:3DAF5282...@rogers.com...
> susupply wrote:
>
> >
> > But, As Paul O'Neill said, The Genius of American Capitalism; losers go
> > under eventually. Too bad the same discipline is absent in public
school
> > districts.
> >
>
> Even a blind hog finds an acorn sometimes, and Patrick is right that
> competition has something to teach us about education.
>
> The reason you can't discipline teachers and school administrators is
> that nobody wants their jobs. No competition.
Clearly not true today. Never has been true in the U.S.A., pre 1840
newspapers ran ads by teachers seeking students for one thing.
susupply
"Stephen J. Fromm" <stephe...@verizon.net>
a man of few words (and most of them misunderstood),
wrote in message news:b4cc5e7c.02101...@posting.google.com...
> "susupply" <susu...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:<aoncm6$kue$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>...
> > "Stephen J. Fromm" <stephe...@verizon.net> wrote in message
> > news:b4cc5e7c.02101...@posting.google.com...
> >
> > > > But, As Paul O'Neill said, The Genius of American Capitalism; losers
go
> > > > under eventually. Too bad the same discipline is absent in public
> > school
> > > > districts.
> > >
> > > Yeah. Too bad the same discipline is absent in the US military.
> >
> > The only serious economist I know to have modeled a competitive defense
> > industry (and in a very limited way) is David Friedman. Is that what
you
> > are talking about?
>
> No, I'm talking about your lack of ability to reason.
Then why don't you explain to both Prof. Friedman and me how to model a
market in defending the country.
susupply
"David Lloyd-Jones" <dlloy...@rogers.com>
proving a cursory knowledge of history is a dangerous thing,
wrote in message news:3DAF4C29...@rogers.com...
> Standing armies only date back to Philip of Macedon (Geez but Adam Smith
> is fun), but public financing of schools predates that by at least a
> thousand years in the Tigris-Euphrates.
How did the Golden Age in Athens finance eduation, David?
Grinch
> Grinch wrote:
> >
> > Geeze, David, "public good" does not mean "good for the public", so
> > that something that is good for the public it is a public good.
> >
>
> Quite right, no that's not what it means. The essence of a public good
> is simply that the beneficiaries are not all individuals who can be
> charged at the point of delivery.
Quite wrong. Are you being silly or willful about this, or what?
Let's look at the dictionary definition again, for about the fifth
time:
>> "Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one
>> person is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is
>> therefore said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's
>> consumption of the good does not reduce its availability to anyone
>> else.
>> "A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where
one
>> person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
>> same unit."
>> -- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
The essence of a public good is that it is non-rivalous to the
*consumer*, not to some third-party "beneficiary".
It is the *consumer*, not third-party beneficiaries, who cannot pay
for an identified portion of the good in a market transaction with the
supplier, "precluding another person's consumption of the same unit".
This is why there are markets for educational services but not for
national defense. A consumer can identify a seat in a classroom,
negotiate a price for the seat with the supplier, park his derriere in
the seat, and reduce the number of seats available to everybody else
by one in doing so. Consumption is *rivalous* for the available seats.
A consumer of national defense, OTOH, cannot identify the particular
portion of it he wishes to use, negotiate a price for it with the
supplier, and reduce the amount of national defense available to
everyone else through his consumption -- any more than consumers of
radio broadcast signals or lighthouse signals can identify the portion
of the signal they are using, pay for it *and reduce the amount
available to others* in the process.
Because one person's consumption of such things does not reduce *at
all* the amount available to others, consumption of these items is
"non rivalous", as per the definition they are "public goods" -- and
there are no markets for individually consumed amounts of such items.
Effects to third-party beneficiaries have *nothing* to do with it --
those are "externalities". As noted before, you can find them in the
dictionary under "E".
> beneficiaries are not all individuals who can be
> charged at the point of delivery.
> Air pollution is a negative public good. Education is a positive one.
Air pollution is a negative externality of whatever process creates
it.
Education is a private good with positive externalities.
Grinch
> Grinch wrote:
> >
> > And what is it that explains Canadians' apparent inability to deal
> > with dictionary definitions?
> >
> >
>
> A quick reminder, the definition OldNasty supplied, and which I accept,
Actually, you haven't shown any sign of that yet, as you seem to
insist on reading "non-rival consumption" as "non-rival benefits",
while conflating third-party beneficiaries with consumers, such as
with your statement "The 'consumers,' i.e. the beneficiaries,..."
> was:
>
> >>> "Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one
> >>>person is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is
> >>>therefore said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's
> >>>consumption of the good does not reduce its availability to anyone
> >>>else
> >>> "A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
> >>>person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
> >>>same unit."
> >>> -- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
Well, let's clarify if you accept the definition:
1) A radio station's broadcasts can be heard by everyone who wants to
in a non-rival manner "as one person's consumption of the good does
not reduce its availability to anyone else."
The station happens to broadcast drek, nobody listens to it, and it
is losing money for its owner.
2) A vaccine is available by the dose. Obviously, two different people
can't take the same dose, so "one person's consumption precludes
another person's consumption of the same unit."
The vaccine has extremely strong positive externalities -- for
each person who takes it, several others will be saved from incurring
a dreaded contagious disease.
Which is the "public good" 1, or 2?
> This is precisely the most salient quality of education -- and why it
> was generally the first or second thing, often before defence, to be
> financed by the public.
> Education itself, as well as its general
> benefits, accrues not merely to the schooled but to everybody around them.
That may be, but positive externalities do not a "public good" make.
> Standing armies only date back to Philip of Macedon (Geez but Adam Smith
> is fun), but public financing of schools predates that by at least a
> thousand years in the Tigris-Euphrates.
Well, I don't know much about the public schools of the Tigris and
Euphrates, but I do know that defense long predates public education
in the Britain and the US.
E.g the first legislation supporting public schools in New York State
wasn't passed until 1842, and we'd fought wars before then.
In Britain, public schools legislation wasn't passed until 1870 -- and
that just made schooling compulsory, while requiring parents to pay
tuition. "Free" public schools weren't created until a generation
after that.
To quote the economic historian Marc Blaug:
"Elementary education during the Industrial Revolution was neither
compulsory nor free, but it was practically universal. Similarly, the
1870 legislation retained school fees with free tickets for the poor,
and most schools only became free in 1891.
"For the intervening generation education was compulsory but state
schools were not free."
-- "The Economics of Education in English Political Economy", in
_Economic History and the History of Economics_, New York University
Press, 1986:
I think Britain attended to its army and navy before 1891.
Grinch
> Grinch <oldn...@mindspring.com> wrote ...
> [snip]
> > Geeze, David, "public good" does not mean "good for the public", so
> > that something that is good for the public it is a public good.
> >
> > I mean, I expected that sort of stuff from the misc.eders, not a
> > sci.econer.
> >
> > What makes an item a public good is -- looking all the way back up to
> > the dictionary definition provided above -- "non-rival consumption".
> >
> > But if you want to argue with the dictionary, be my guest.
> >
> > BTW, what you are talking about is an "externality". You will find it
> > under "E".
> >
> > >The "consumers," i.e. the beneficiaries, of education are everybody who
> > >lives with the formerly ignorant, not just the educated themselves.
> >
> > Right. And if I eat a healthy and nutritious diet I am not the only
> > "consumer, i.e. beneficiary" of that either -- if you want to equate
> > beneficiaries with consumers.
> >
> > All of society benefits because I will be stronger, less susceptible
> > to disease (and thus will consume fewer medical resources), less
> > likely to transmit disease to others, a better worker, I will live a
> > longer life so my work will contribute more to the welfare of others
> > cumulatively, and so on.
> >
> > This does not make food a *public good*. Geeze.
>
> "...less likely to transmit disease to others..."
>
> How is this aspect not a public good? It is both nonrival and
> nonexcludable.
Because, as per the definition again, the "nonrival and nonexcludable"
element of a public good is its *consumption* -- not whatever benefits
or costs it may have to third parties. Those are "externalities".
And it is nonrival and nonexclucable *consumption* that prevents
markets from developing for the direct consumption of public goods --
why arrangements like tax financing must be used instead.
A couple examples may illustrate.
A commercial broadcast radio station signal's availability to me is
not reduced if you listen to it. If a million people listen to it, its
availability to even more is not reduced at all. Consumption of it is
nonexclusive -- one person's use of it doesn't exclude another's --
and is non-rivalous. It is a "public good".
And due to its nature as such, you cannot negotiate a price with the
radio station for a specific portion of the signal you'd like to use.
Which is why radio pioneers were stumped for a way to make
broadcasting financially viable until they hit on the idea of
inserting commercials in broadcasts, as a sort of tax on consumers.
With a vaccine, OTOH, once a dose is used it is gone. Your use of it
excludes anybody else's use of it. Consumption is rivalous for the
available doses -- two people can't use the same dose. It is a
"private good" -- the vaccine will be produced by the dose, purchasers
will use it by the dose, and markets can price it by the dose.
Now a vaccine may have great positive externalities --
vaccinating only one person against a contagious disease may prevent
several others from getting it, and vaccinating the right people may
eliminate a disease from an entire population. Such positive
exeternalities may justify government subsidies for consumption of a
good, or even the government stepping in as the purchaser and
distributor of it.
But such positive externalities and policy considerations do not
change the nature of the *consumption* and *provision* of a private
good to those of a public good. "X is good for the public so it is a
'public good'" just doesn't fly. "Rivalous and exclusive consumption"
is a plain different thing fromn "nonrivalous and nonexclusive
consumption".
And that's why we can't and don't have markets where persons can use
cash or vouchers to buy "national defense services" on an individual
basis, but can and do have such markets for educational services.
> Likewise, the *particular* aspect of public education that DLJ was
> presumably referring to---namely, that having a literate public is a
> prerequisite for not living in a 3rd world shithole---appears to be
> both nonrival and nonexcludable.
That particular aspect of education is an *externality*.
Heck, all kinds of things have positive externalities. If I fix my
home up beautifully the market value of those around mine will go up,
and others will benefit. If a business invests in training its
workers, society and other employers benefit from having better
trained workers available. If a railroad runs a new line to a remote
town the property values there will go up. If I eat a healthy diet
I'll be a better and longer-lived worker imposing fewer health costs
on society, and all kinds of people will benefit. One could make a
list of such things a mile long....
If we followed with the argument that the positive externalities to
the public made all these things "public goods", the words wouldn't
have much meaning. And if we followed with the notion that all these
"public goods" could only be providied by the government, like the
public good of national defense, geeze...
That's why the dictionary has separate entries and different
definitions for "public good" and "externality".
Also why it also has separate entries for "consumer" and
"beneficiary", two words David had to conflate with his "The
'consumers,' i.e. the beneficiaries..." to have his thinking make
sense even to himself.
The third-party "beneficiaries" of a transaction through its positive
externalities are *not* the consumers in the transaction.
Grinch
Fromm) wrote:
Lots of officers get bounced from the military for performance
reasons.
In fact low-performing officers are culled from it regularly -- the
"up or out" rule you know, if you don't earn a promotion in
competition with your peers, you go out. Just about the opposite of
teacher tenure in the public schools, I'd say.
Now as to other governmental organizations that never, ever, go out of
business no matter how long since their purpose has passed, yeah, it
would be nice if there was some sort of systemic discipline to close
them down when they become net loss producers, like the market closes
loss-producing businesses. But with civil service protection
guaranteeing nobody can ever lose a job, and political patronage
relationships guaranteeing no agency can ever be closed, what are ya
gonna do? ;-(
Grinch
Fromm) wrote:
I'm not sure what you are asking about.
Why is it the case that food and education can only be provided by a
monopoly government supplier? You can't mean that.
Why is it the case that national defense can only be provided by a
monoply goverment supplier*, and not by the private sector to
individuals who want specified amounts of it for specified prices?
See my other posts.
In any event, since food and education can, while national defense
can't, there's the difference in the type of goods they are.
>
>[snip]
*As a practical matter, in our world as we know it. If there are any
conceptual ideas about how national defense might be provided by
private markets, I'm sure David Friedman is the man to explain them.
>Best,
>
>sjfromm
susupply
> *As a practical matter, in our world as we know it. If there are any
> conceptual ideas about how national defense might be provided by
> private markets, I'm sure David Friedman is the man to explain them.
And he has, and Fromm can be a free rider...er...reader of it at:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Price_Theory/PThy_Chapter_18/PThy_Cha
p_18.html
David Lloyd-Jones
>
> Because, as per the definition again, the "nonrival and nonexcludable"
> element of a public good is its *consumption* -- not whatever benefits
> or costs it may have to third parties. Those are "externalities".
This is the argument that since a car and wheels are diffferent things,
therefore if it has wheels it can't be a car.
> And it is nonrival and nonexclucable *consumption* that prevents
> markets from developing for the direct consumption of public goods --
> why arrangements like tax financing must be used instead.
It its arbitrary and capricious to claim that students are the exclusive
consumers of education. In fact it's plain dopey to treat education as a
cionsumed good.
Grinch you got it wrong, you don't understand the definition you
yourself presented, and you're too wound up in your commitment to your
consumer-good vision of education that you can't step back and see how
you got it wrong.
You remind me quite specifically of Patrick with his dictionary
definition of "oxymoron" which quite clearly did not say what he
repeatedly said it said.
Do you guys have to take a test in this sort of thing to get an Act Like
A Right Wing Nut license?
> A couple examples may illustrate.
>
> A commercial broadcast radio station signal's availability to me is
> not reduced if you listen to it. If a million people listen to it, its
> availability to even more is not reduced at all. Consumption of it is
> nonexclusive -- one person's use of it doesn't exclude another's --
> and is non-rivalous. It is a "public good".
Fine. Smilarly you can't walk into a store and pay to have literate
neighbours and all the benefits that involves. The only way you can get
them is by paying taxes to run public schools.
> With a vaccine, OTOH, once a dose is used it is gone.
Dopier and dopier.The reason vaccination is a public good is that you
can't buy herd immunity by getting yourself innoculated -- and you can
catch immunity from a neighbour who has been innoculated with, e.g.
chickenpox.
(Hey, I thought lawyers were trained in finding illustrative examples.
Which law school should we cut off public funding for, for our own
protection?)
> The third-party "beneficiaries" of a transaction through its positive
> externalities are *not* the consumers in the transaction.
Quite right. But they are consumers of the public good where one results
from the transaction. Education is always and everywhere a public good
which is produced by schooling, which may be a privately or publicly
funded bundle of transactions.
-dlj.
susupply
"David Lloyd-Jones" <dlloy...@rogers.com>
asking for another shovel because the hole he's in isn't deep enough yet,
wrote in message news:3DB0737E...@rogers.com...
> You remind me quite specifically of Patrick with his dictionary
> definition of "oxymoron" which quite clearly did not say what he
> repeatedly said it said.
[snip]
>... you can't walk into a store and pay to have literate
> neighbours and all the benefits that involves. The only way you can get
> them is by paying taxes to run public schools.
It happens all the time. For instance:
http://edreform.com/pubs/privprog.htm
<< As of August 1999, 79 private scholarship programs were providing
some of America's most underprivileged families the opportunity to send
their children to a school of their choice. For over 57,000 children, this
education opportunity means an escape from failing inner-city public
schools, and an enhanced likelihood of a productive and successful future.
>>
And as for your claim that I misunderstand the dictionary definition of
"oxymoron", here's the chronology:
DLJ: << "oxymoron" does *not* mean contradiction.>> [emphasis is David's]
I provided the facts for David from Merriam-Webster:
<<
Main Entry: ox·y·mo·ron
.... a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel
kindness) >>
DLJ's spin:
<< Patrick,
<< This supports me, and not you. Miriam Webster agree with me that an
oxymoron
is made up of contradictory words ...>>
tonyp
"Grinch" <oldn...@mindspring.com> wrote
> Let's look at the dictionary definition again, for about the fifth
> time:
Or, let's not. Let's ask, instead, what the point of dictionary
definitions is.
Webster no doubt defines a "rose" in pedantic detail. Shakespeare
points out that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Twain
demurs, a little, by suggesting that it might not, really, if it was
called a "skunk-cabbage".
Webster's truth is straightforward: the world is made up of things
which are _called_ roses and things which are _not_ called roses.
Shakespeare's truth is more subtle: arguing about what to _call_
something is not argument about the essence of the thing. Twain, as
usual, is the voice of common sense: choose the name of a thing, and
you've got the political battle half-won.
Who the hell cares whether education is _defined_ as a "public good"?
The important question is, as always, a political one: do we prefer a
world with more educated people in it, or fewer? Either way, how do
we get there?
David says "pay teachers more, and the market will provide better
teachers". Seems pretty logical to me, regardless whether schools are
public or private.
-- Tony P.
David Lloyd-Jones
>
> Main Entry: ox?y?mo?ron
> ..... a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel
> kindness) >>
>
> DLJ's spin:
>
> << Patrick,
>
> << This supports me, and not you. Miriam Webster agree with me that an
> oxymoron
> is made up of contradictory words ...>>
>
To say that "made up of contradictory elements" is the same as
"contradictiion" is known in logic as a Fallacy of Composition.
A can of beans is not a bean. A bimetallic strip is not a metal.
-dlj.
susupply
"David Lloyd-Jones" <dlloy...@rogers.com>
who will never be a usenet star until he learns to Google up the threads in
question to get his facts in order,
wrote in message news:3DB09957...@rogers.com...
Great, plurals are not singulars. I suspect everyone already knew that,
David.
Now to your original claim about oxymorons:
<<-------------------quote--------------------------------
From: David Lloyd-Jones (dav...@sympatico.ca)
Subject: Award of Flying Prune Was Re: David Landes
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Date: 2002-02-16 18:10:09 PST
> >"susupply" <susu...@mindspring.com> wrote, (or is it quoted?):
> >> Again, you have created an oxymoron. "Slave" and "remuneration" are
> >> contradictory by definition.
Just to remind everybody that Granny Grammar is still alive, "oxymoron" does
*not* mean contradiction.
----------------------endquote-------------------->>
Take note that in the above it was YOU who defined contradictory terms as a
contradiction. It appears you don't know beans, semantically speaking.
C. P. Weidling
> "Grinch" <oldn...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
> > Let's look at the dictionary definition again, for about the fifth
> > time:
>
>
> Or, let's not. Let's ask, instead, what the point of dictionary
...<snip>...
>
> Who the hell cares whether education is _defined_ as a "public good"?
> The important question is, as always, a political one: do we prefer a
> world with more educated people in it, or fewer? Either way, how do
> we get there?
>
> David says "pay teachers more, and the market will provide better
> teachers". Seems pretty logical to me, regardless whether schools are
> public or private.
>
Then the argument will be how to motivate society in general
to pay more (or less) to those teachers. Some might say do it by
privatization, bring market forces to bear on the problem. Others
might say this will really create a 3rd world situation, with the
aristocracy adundantly educating their children while those who have
the bad judgement to be born into the slums are even more shut out
than they already are, and others might say vouchers are the best of
both worlds, making it competitive but not shutting out the poor. (I
think that's how vouchers are supposed to work. If not, possibly
someone will provide a correction in this forum.)
--
Replace ragwind.localdomain rahul for my real email address
David Lloyd-Jones
>
>>>"susupply" <susu...@mindspring.com> wrote, (or is it quoted?):
>>>
>>>>Again, you have created an oxymoron. "Slave" and "remuneration" are
>>>>contradictory by definition.
>
>
> Just to remind everybody that Granny Grammar is still alive, "oxymoron" does
> *not* mean contradiction.
> ----------------------endquote-------------------->>
>
> Take note that in the above it was YOU who defined contradictory terms as a
> contradiction. It appears you don't know beans, semantically speaking.
>
Patrick,
Your general position is both wrong and ridiculous, but here I think you
reach some new peak of, well, of oddity.
You quote me from the ancient past as saying -- right there, above --
"oxymoron does not mean contradiction," and you claim that this means I
defined contradictory terms as a contradiction -- implying that this
suggests that everything made out of contradictory terms must be a
contradiction. This is just obviously not true. There is nothing
contradictory about the fact that orange marmalade is quite positively
bittersweet -- even though "bitter" and "sweet" are contradictory to
each other. It's just a straighforward non-contradictory fact about
marmalade. And so it goes.
You not merely misunderstand your own dictionary quotes; you even
misunderstand your own DejaVu/Google quotes.
You are making no sense at all, and I give up on you.
-dlj.
Narnia Fan
> Grinch wrote, and apparently believes:
>
> > OTOH, money spent to provide a classroom and teacher for a class of
> > children serves only those children.
>
> It may be true that the children in any parrticular classroom benefit
> from their education -- as the people in any particular place may
> benefit from defence.
>
> This, however, is not the only set of beneficiaries: education is a
> public good precisely because most of the benefit of any bunch of
> children being literate, numerate, and marginally socialized goes to the
> larger group of people around them.
>
> The "consumers," i.e. the beneficiaries, of education are everybody who
> lives with the formerly ignorant, not just the educated themselves.
>
> the main reasons America has -- along with its many great virtues --
> such a sharp edge of savagery about it.
>
That's a classic defense of government
funding for education. It's a pretty good
argument, but I am not persuaded. Any private
good can be sifted to uncover third party
benefits. Education may be especially easy
to yield up third party benefits. But any
private good might yield at least something.
It isn't unique to education except, perhaps,
as a matter of degree. I have made a bold
claim. Can I back it up? Food is a private
good. When folks buy food third parties don't
have to look at those people starving, and so
compassionate third parties benefit. But that
doesn't justify government funding of food.
Cars are a private good. When folks buy cars
third parties are not troubled by requests to
share a ride. But that doesn't justify
government provision of cars. Disneyland is
a private good. And when folks buy tickets
and enjoy the day there, they have smiles and
are friendly. Third parties will benefit from
those smiles, but that doesn't justify
government funding of Disneyland. Same with
steel tariffs, and many other goods.
I guess I will state my thesis this way:
all goods have some elements of public goods
and all goods have some elements of private
goods, in varying proportions.
Is the public good element in education
sufficient to warrant provision by government?
When evaluating that, consider that the
public who benefits from that other person's
education is able to reward that person for
that education in various ways. An employer
can reward that student by hiring that
student, so that part of the public benefit is
converted back into the private benefit of the
student. Consumers can buy things made by the
student, encouraging the employer to keep the
student, and converting that part of the public
benefit back into the private benefit of the
student. And the rewards don't have to be
monetary to count. Conversationalists can
reward the student by having a second or third
witty conversation with the student instead of
dumping the student as a bore, since the student
is now educated enough to appreciate the
conversation. Anyone who might have shunned
a uneducated savages will now admit the student
to their activities, rewarding the student.
Converting that part of the public benefit
back into a private benefit of the student.
The public gives back much of that public
benefit to that student, so you should not
count all of the beneficial third party
effects as purely public benefit--much of
it is "repatriated" to the student.
As I was writing this, I considered giving
individual disease prevention as a possible
example of something with a stronger than
average element of public good, since it
reduces the spread of disease to unwitting
third parties.
In considering non-pecuniary benefits of
education, I was reminded that education
has at least one non-pecuniary harm on
the public at large: a highly educated
person may be more qualified to sneer at
others, which is a net loss to the public.
Finally, I will mention something which
deserves a chapter in a book but which I
don't have time to go into so I will just
allude to it. The interplay of buyers and
sellers known as "the market" doesn't do
well with public goods; but resorting to
government doesn't automatically solve the
problems. Furthermore, approaching the
ideal of good government itself has public
goods problems.
NarniaFan
David Lloyd-Jones
> In considering non-pecuniary benefits of
> education, I was reminded that education
> has at least one non-pecuniary harm on
> the public at large: a highly educated
> person may be more qualified to sneer at
> others, which is a net loss to the public.
Does Narnia Fan have any empirical evidence for this?
Does Narnia Fan know of *any* ethical tradition in which "more
qualified" is defined to allow his claim to make sense?
May I suggest that what we have here is a fine example of the very
strained and peculiar reasoning needed to make the anti-public-education
position? No, he's not arguing for vouchers: the argument is against
education, indiscriminately.
Narnia Fan illustrates for us that the case is arguable -- but only if
you take unreal and other-worldly definitions of things like
"qualified," "learned," "benefit," and so on. These words and phrases
have real-world uses and meanings, and when they are used in
conventional ways they support reasonable views of the world. It is only
by twisting and torturing the meanings of words that one can put
together a position reactionary to the point of longing for times
thousands of years in the past, even before civilization was first being
invented.
-dlj.
susupply
> Narnia Fan wrote:
>
> > In considering non-pecuniary benefits of
> > education, I was reminded that education
> > has at least one non-pecuniary harm on
> > the public at large: a highly educated
> > person may be more qualified to sneer at
> > others, which is a net loss to the public.
>
> Does Narnia Fan have any empirical evidence for this?
For starters, Brad DeLong's Comments section of his blog.
susupply
"tonyp" <to...@world.std.com> wrote in message
news:aoq51m$pvk$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
>
> "Grinch" <oldn...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
> > Let's look at the dictionary definition again, for about the fifth
> > time:
>
>
> Or, let's not. Let's ask, instead, what the point of dictionary
> definitions is.
That people use words consistently in order to facilitate communication.
The opposite of the way some people on sci.econ use them.
[snip]
> David says "pay teachers more, and the market will provide better
> teachers". Seems pretty logical to me, regardless whether schools are
> public or private.
Logical only to those ignorant of the history of education. Actually,
ignorance most economic history. To pick a particularly sore point around
here, did the Seattle Sonics get better basketball from Vin Baker when they
showered tens of millions of dollars on him?
But getting back to education, public school teachers are much better paid
today (constant dollars) than 40 years ago, but their productivity has not
increased at all (maybe even declined). Private schools that pay lower
salaries often have the superior teachers.
David Friedman
David Lloyd-Jones <dlloy...@rogers.com> wrote:
> Narnia Fan wrote:
>
> > In considering non-pecuniary benefits of
> > education, I was reminded that education
> > has at least one non-pecuniary harm on
> > the public at large: a highly educated
> > person may be more qualified to sneer at
> > others, which is a net loss to the public.
>
> Does Narnia Fan have any empirical evidence for this?
For a somewhat more detailed version of the argument, you might try
Robert Frank's book _Choosing the Right Pond_. It is an attempt to
analyze the implications for economics of the fact that humans care
about relative status. To the extent that Frank is correct, anything you
do that increases the relative status of one person--such as getting him
a better education--imposes negative externalities on everyone else, or
at least everyone else who is in a position to rank himself in part
relative to that one.
Donna Metler
I'm not sure that follows. I'm a public school teacher, and I admit that I'm
on a different level than many of my co-workers (it is always a shock to
hear someone complaining about having to re-take the certification exam
because their score was too low, or to proofread some of the papers others
are writing for graduate classes for continuing certification). However,
from what I've seen, the loss of productivity between now and 40 years ago
has a lot more to do with the breakdown of discipline and parental support.
When I was in school in the 1970's and 80's (after a lot of the supposed
breakdown had already occurred), teachers generally had relatively few
discipline problems to deal with. While corporal punishment was outlawed in
Va schools early, isolation rooms and boxes, which are now considered to be
unacceptable and abusive, were still in common use. The clowining child
would find him/herself in the same classroom, but behind walls where no one
could see his behavior. Violence, except for teasing and verbal bullying
(which I think we do better at now than they did then) was pretty well under
control. Parents were pretty visible in the schools, because there were
still quite a large number of stay at home parents who came in and
volunteered. Parents did cafeteria and playground supervision, for example.
My school doesn't have this. We are very limited on disciplinary
options-often the only option we can use is to suspend a child, up to a
certain number of days, which isn't very helpful in either education or
changing behavior when there is no parent at home to enforce it. The list of
can'ts is much longer than the list of cans. Our parents simply don't have
the option of coming to school to volunteer-work schedules won't allow it,
and security requirements make it a VERY annoying process to get cleared to
volunteer, since a regular volunteer must go through the same fingerprinting
and records check as a teacher or other employee (although you're allowed to
start working/volunteering before they get the records check back-so I don't
know how much it helps. There have been many cases where someone with a
record has been in the schools several years before anyone notices).
To be blunt, teaching isn't the same, because the schools and children
aren't the same. And this isn't the fault of the teachers, but the family
structure and societal expectations. 30 years ago, I would never dreamed of
accusing a teacher of abuse because she berated me because my work wasn't
satisfactory, made me sit in a corner, or put me in the hallway-now teachers
can lose their jobs for all of the above. All it takes is one parent with an
agenda, and sometimes one or more students with an agenda.
I would submit that it is not that private schools have better teachers, but
that they have better students and better parents. In addition, there is
another factor in play (and one which I will probably use should I ever have
children). Teachers who have children of their own who choose to teach in
private schools generally get significant tutition breaks for their
child/children. As a result, high-level private schools often can get a
teacher who has a lot of experience because their child turned 5, they would
love to be able to send them to a $15,000 a year school, and are willing to
take a $10,000/yr pay cut to get the 50% tuition waiver. The private school
which attempted to recruit me used this as a major selling point for why I
should take the salary cut, loss of benefits, and come on board with them,
and if I had been in a position of having children, it would have been very
attractive. According to the head of that particular school, 75% of their
teachers have or have had one or more children in the school.
Gordon Sande
"susupply" <susu...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>But getting back to education, public school teachers are much better paid
>today (constant dollars) than 40 years ago, but their productivity has not
>increased at all (maybe even declined). Private schools that pay lower
>salaries often have the superior teachers.
>
And how much of the lower historical "cost" was due to discrimation against
women who were restricted to this "ghetto" of low pay?
A first step might be to figure out some of the "pay equity" issues.
A further step might be to measure some of the other discrimation issues
that are mixed into the productivity. Hint - consider something called
"special education".
Joni Rathbun
On Sat, 19 Oct 2002, Donna Metler wrote:
> I would submit that it is not that private schools have better teachers, but
> that they have better students and better parents. In addition, there is
> another factor in play (and one which I will probably use should I ever have
> children). Teachers who have children of their own who choose to teach in
> private schools generally get significant tutition breaks for their
> child/children. As a result, high-level private schools often can get a
> teacher who has a lot of experience because their child turned 5, they would
> love to be able to send them to a $15,000 a year school, and are willing to
> take a $10,000/yr pay cut to get the 50% tuition waiver. The private school
> which attempted to recruit me used this as a major selling point for why I
> should take the salary cut, loss of benefits, and come on board with them,
> and if I had been in a position of having children, it would have been very
> attractive. According to the head of that particular school, 75% of their
> teachers have or have had one or more children in the school.
>
Also keep in mind that private schools have a higher teacher turnover
rate - with those teachers moving into a public school position
presumably for better wages and benefits.
My experience sending my daughter to a highly touted private school
was that I learned they did things the same way we were doing them
in the local public elementary only not as well. That and the majority of
teachers there were teachers who hadn't been able to get on in the public
system. IOW, it was all show for the SUV crowd. So one year was it for us.
Had there been a truly superior private school in our area, I can imagine
the salary trade-off for tuition tho not as the single mom I am
today. Insurance benefits are as important to me as salary. I could
not take the cut in pay and also come up with the $$$$ to cover my
health insurance. Loss of PERS would be significant too.
tonyp
"susupply" <susu...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
> "tonyp" wrote:
> > Or, let's not. Let's ask, instead, what the point of
> > dictionary definitions is.
>
> That people use words consistently in order to facilitate
> communication. The opposite of the way
> some people on sci.econ use them.
Some people do indeed use their own quaint vocabulary. Frenchmen
consistently say "fromage" when they mean "cheese", and Republicans
consistently say "death tax" when they mean "inheritance tax".
Neither tribe is trying to "facilitate communication" with speakers of
plain English, but Frenchmen at least have the decency to publish
French-English dictionaries.
> But getting back to education, public school teachers are much
better paid
> today (constant dollars) than 40 years ago, but their productivity
has not
> increased at all (maybe even declined). Private schools that pay
lower
> salaries often have the superior teachers.
These are interesting assertions. Teacher pay can probably be
quantified to everybody's satisfaction, so your assertion about that
is presumably testable. Teacher productivity seems a bit tougher.
How have people claimed to measure it?
-- Tony P.
Grinch
wrote:
>
>"Grinch" <oldn...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
>> Let's look at the dictionary definition again, for about the fifth
>> time:
>
>
>Or, let's not. Let's ask, instead, what the point of dictionary
>definitions is.
>
>Webster no doubt defines a "rose" in pedantic detail. Shakespeare
>points out that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Twain
>demurs, a little, by suggesting that it might not, really, if it was
>called a "skunk-cabbage".
>
>Webster's truth is straightforward: the world is made up of things
>which are _called_ roses and things which are _not_ called roses.
>Shakespeare's truth is more subtle: arguing about what to _call_
>something is not argument about the essence of the thing. Twain, as
>usual, is the voice of common sense: choose the name of a thing, and
>you've got the political battle half-won.
>
>Who the hell cares whether education is _defined_ as a "public good"?
The person who asked "Why can individuals use vouchers to pay for
education but not for national defense?"
>The important question is, as always, a political one: do we prefer a
>world with more educated people in it, or fewer?
Well, you can *change* the subject to any other "important" thing you
like -- but there was an actual question asked here.
And the answer is: individuals can pay for education with vouchers
because it is a private good, but can't pay for national defense with
vouchers because it is a public good.
That's reality -- and the dictionary definition *explains* why it is
so. Now, you can wax philosophic about the definitions of 'roses' and
'skunk cabbage' and such all you like, but you won't change that
reality one bit.
BTW, a great many important questions have much more to do with
reality than with politics. Most, I suspect. ;-)
>Either way, how do
>we get there?
>
>David says "pay teachers more, and the market will provide better
>teachers". Seems pretty logical to me, regardless whether schools are
>public or private.
Yes, David likes to change the subject too.
>-- Tony P.
>
>
>
racqu...@nospam.hvc.rr.com
wrote:
>
>"susupply" <susu...@mindspring.com> wrote
>>
>> But getting back to education, public school teachers are much
>> better paid today (constant dollars) than 40 years ago, but their
>> productivity has not increased at all (maybe even declined).
>> Private schools that pay lower salaries often have the superior
>> teachers.
>
>These are interesting assertions. Teacher pay can probably be
>quantified to everybody's satisfaction, so your assertion about that
>is presumably testable.
I began my career in 1969 with a salary of $6500. I would have ended
my career in that district at around $80,000.
>Teacher productivity seems a bit tougher. How have people
>claimed to measure it?
You can't measure teacher "productivity" since teachers do not produce
a "product" in the sense that industry/business uses the term. All
that can be reasonably measured to assess teachers' efforts is their
competence in following the dictates of the states and the districts
in which they work.
As to private schools that pay lower salaries often having "the
superior teachers", the opposite is more normally the case. It used
to be true that the parochial schools would have very well-qualified
teachers (that consisted largely of clergy). That is no longer the
usualy case, and barring the handful of teachers that serve private
schools for altruistic reasons, the usual situation is that the low
pay attracts people who cannot gain employment in the public schools.
What is REALLY different about the schools over the last 40 years is
the kids themselves (as well as their parents). Everyone today has
"rights" and exercises them liberally to the extent that discipline
cannot be maintained. Many parents abet their kids in misbehavior and
lack of effort. And there are too many distractions now: cars, jobs,
etc. Kids simply do not take their "work" in school very seriously.
Mason Clark
>There are lots of things that are private goods with some externality.
>But since we have a very good mechanism for producing private goods and
>very poor political mechanisms for producing public goods, it makes
>sense to treat such "slightly public" goods as private goods unless the
>externality if very large.
An expression of an ideology, basically anarchist: government is bad.
C'mon, look around you at all the "politically" produced goods.
Is there inefficiency? Of course? Is there inefficiency in private
production? You bet there is. It's a close contest. For the political
goods the public votes. For the private goods the public votes with
purchase money. Which is more "efficient" is a question which is
only answered on the basis of ideology.
Cut to the core: the "Republican" "conservative" "right" ideology is
opposed to government in all its ramifications, purposes, and acts.
That makes the science of economics easy.
Mason
Mason Clark
>And due to its nature as such, you cannot negotiate a price with the
>radio station for a specific portion of the signal you'd like to use.
Not so. The BBC does (or used to) charge for the use of its signal.
It's a technical problem of no great difficulty.
Starting from this example:
I deny the existence of any "public good" based on this sort of
definition. The definition rests on degree of difficulty of collecting
payment for the good -- a spongy definition I'll be glad to squeeze.
Mason
tonyp
"Grinch" <oldn...@mindspring.com> wrote
> >Who the hell cares whether education is _defined_ as a "public
good"?
>
> The person who asked "Why can individuals use vouchers to pay for
> education but not for national defense?"
Well, individuals can use _cash_ to buy education for themselves, for
sure. But if you want to talk about vouchers, as the term is used in
contemporary US politics, then you are talking about education as a
collective enterprise. Vouchers are funded by taxes, after all. I
have no kids myself. I pay taxes to fund the education of other
people's children. I'd have to pay the taxes even if vouchers were
the distribution mechanism. So the "education" we're talking about is
"publicly funded education", vouchers or no vouchers.
Now, why in hell has the public chosen to fund education, as well as
national defense? I suggest it's because "the public" considers both
things "goods" from its point of view. The public may be ignorant of
the definition of "public good" as a term of art in economics, but I
bet that even if you explained it to them, the public would _still_
choose to fund education collectively. Or do you think they would
not? Or should not?
> BTW, a great many important questions have much more to do with
> reality than with politics. Most, I suspect. ;-)
"Important" is a political judgement :-)
-- Tony P.
Grinch
the steel cage for his death match with the dictionary, writing:
> Grinch wrote:
> >
> > Because, as per the definition again, the "nonrival and nonexcludable"
> > element of a public good is its *consumption* -- not whatever benefits
> > or costs it may have to third parties. Those are "externalities".
>
> This is the argument that since a car and wheels are diffferent things,
> therefore if it has wheels it can't be a car.
What a bizarre statement. In any event, there is no argument at all,
only a reference to the dictionary. To wit, yet again:
~~
"Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one person
is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is therefore
said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's consumption of
the good does not reduce its availability to anyone else .
"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
same unit."
-- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
~~
Now remember, David, your argument is with the good editors at M.I.T.,
not with me. Go get 'em, tiger! (I'm rooting for you, though my
money's on the other side.)
> > And it is nonrival and nonexclucable *consumption* that prevents
> > markets from developing for the direct consumption of public goods --
> > why arrangements like tax financing must be used instead.
>
> It its arbitrary and capricious to claim that students are the exclusive
> consumers of education.
It might be to claim that students are the exclusive beneficiaries of
education, though nobody's claiming that.
But those dang editors have different entries in their dictionary for
"consumer" and "beneficiary", just as if those words have two
different meanings! While you keep saying they are the same thing [
"The'consumers,' i.e. the beneficiaries..."]
Why do they use two words when one will do?? Slap them down here and
you may score a point!
> In fact it's plain dopey to treat education as a
> cionsumed good.
>
> Grinch you got it wrong, you don't understand the definition you
> yourself presented,
Well, lets see!
>
> > A couple examples may illustrate.
> >
> > A commercial broadcast radio station signal's availability to me is
> > not reduced if you listen to it. If a million people listen to it, its
> > availability to even more is not reduced at all. Consumption of it is
> > nonexclusive -- one person's use of it doesn't exclude another's --
> > and is non-rivalous. It is a "public good".
>
> Fine. Smilarly you can't walk into a store and pay to have literate
> neighbours and all the benefits that involves. The only way you can get
> them is by paying taxes to run public schools.
??? What's that got to do with anything? Remember the dictionary!
"Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one person
is available to others at no extra cost." So...
If a radio broadcast signal is supplied to one person, is it also
available to others a no extra cost? Yes it is, so the dictionary says
it is a "public good".
If a lighthouse signal is supplied to one ship at sea, is it also
available to other ships at no extra cost? Yes it is, so the
dictionary says it is a "public good".
If an education is provided to one student, is it also available to
other students at *no extra cost*? No, it isn't! So the dictionary
says it is not a "public good".
Now, if you are going to keep insisting that education is a public
good, you are going to have to say that either:
a) education provided to one student *is* available to other students
at *no extra cost*; or
b) those fool editors at MIT don't know what they are talking about,
and have lead poor naive me astray.
Which do you choose?
> > With a vaccine, OTOH, once a dose is used it is gone.
>
> Dopier and dopier
It's not gone?? If a vaccine is given to one person, can it be given
to other persons at no extra cost?
Watch out, David! The dictionary continues...!
"A public good is therefore said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as
one person's consumption of the good does not reduce its availability
to anyone else."
If one person is given a dose of a vaccine, is that dose's
availability to other persons reduced?
If so, the dictionary editors are going to say it is *not* a "public
good", I'm afraid.
>.The reason vaccination is a public good is that you
> can't buy herd immunity by getting yourself innoculated -- and you can
> catch immunity from a neighbour who has been innoculated with, e.g.
> chickenpox.
"Herd immunity"?? Another bizarre comment that seems to flee from
the dictionary's plain statements. But those dang dictionary editors
say "he can run, but he can't hide"....
"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
same unit."
Hey, if one person consumes a unit of a vaccine, does that "preclude
another person's consumption of the same unit"?
Yes? Well, that makes a vaccine a private good, by the plain
dictionary definition.
It looks to me like you've been pinned.
> (Hey, I thought lawyers were trained in finding illustrative examples.
> Which law school should we cut off public funding for, for our own
> protection?)
I admit, my education did teach me how to read the dictionary. But
that happened in grammar school, high school at the latest.
Where'd you go to school that they taught you to make up your own
meanings for words as you go along, as you find convenient? (I read a
book once where people did that. By Orwell, I think. Didn't have a
happy ending.)
> > The third-party "beneficiaries" of a transaction through its positive
> > externalities are *not* the consumers in the transaction.
>
> Quite right. But they are consumers of the public good where one results
> from the transaction. Education is always and everywhere a public good
> which is produced by schooling,
Ah, back to the old, "if it's good for the public then it's a 'public
good'" silliness, eh?
> which may be a privately or publicly
> funded bundle of transactions.
Just like that other public good, national defense, right?
Nothing stops national defense from being provided by a publicly *or*
privately funded bundle of transactions, because it's a public good
just like education. ;-)
Well, that was the original question. Glad you finally got around to
answering it.
But about this "beneficiaries = consumers" strangeness: Say I drink a
case of beer and then go driving my car in a drunkenly reckless manner
that results in putting you in the hospital. That certainly makes you
a (negative) beneficiary of my beer consumption. Will you tell your
visitors that you're in the hospital because you consumed too much
beer?
David Lloyd-Jones
> On October 18,2002, David Lloyd-Jones <dlloy...@rogers.com> entered
> the steel cage for his death match with the dictionary, writing:
Grinch,
I see you've adopted Patrick's childish spasm of starting your posts
with a schoolyard insult. This one backfires, drawing attention to your
own reliance on the crutch of a couple of words pulled out of a single
dictionary definition -- rather than on the contextual meaning of what a
"public good" is.
>>Grinch wrote:
>>
>>>Because, as per the definition again, the "nonrival and nonexcludable"
>>>element of a public good is its *consumption* -- not whatever benefits
>>>or costs it may have to third parties. Those are "externalities".
>>
>>This is the argument that since a car and wheels are diffferent things,
>>therefore if it has wheels it can't be a car.
>
> What a bizarre statement. In any event, there is no argument at all,
> only a reference to the dictionary. To wit, yet again:
How good of you to simplify things by stating up front that you don't
understand.
Your ridiculous proposition was "This has externalities, so it can't be
a public good." I parodied that as "This has wheels, so it can't be a car."
Cars tend to have wheels, just as public goods have externalities; in
fact it's of their essences in both cases.
You say that you couldn't understand this. That's exactly what I had
pointed out in my earlier two posts: you don't understanmd this.
It is a pleasure to have you confirm my point.
-dlj.
racqu...@nospam.hvc.rr.com
>~~
>"Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one person
>is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is therefore
>said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's consumption of
>the good does not reduce its availability to anyone else .
>
>"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
>person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
>same unit."
>
>-- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
Grinch, using the definitions above, can you explain to me how it is
that "government-supplied education" (public schools) can be
considered anything OTHER than a "public good"? It seems to me that
it fits the definition you provided perfectly in that the "cost" of
the good is zero to ALL who attend, all CAN attend, and the
"consumption" of the good has no effect on others in the class/school?
Otoh, a PRIVATE school seems to function as a private good in that
attendence is limited and one student's consumption precludes that
consumption by those not allowed to attend. If government were to
provide direct funding to attend private schools, would that not
change a PUBLIC good into a PRIVATE good? And would that not be an
unacceptable use for PUBLIC funds?
Bob LeChevalier
>On Fri, 18 Oct 2002 19:21:24 -0400, "tonyp" <to...@world.std.com>
>wrote:
>>which are _called_ roses and things which are _not_ called roses.
>>Shakespeare's truth is more subtle: arguing about what to _call_
>>something is not argument about the essence of the thing. Twain, as
>>usual, is the voice of common sense: choose the name of a thing, and
>>you've got the political battle half-won.
>>
>>Who the hell cares whether education is _defined_ as a "public good"?
>
>The person who asked "Why can individuals use vouchers to pay for
>education but not for national defense?"
No they do NOT care about the definition of a "public good", because
that definition is irrelevant.
>>The important question is, as always, a political one: do we prefer a
>>world with more educated people in it, or fewer?
>
>Well, you can *change* the subject to any other "important" thing you
>like -- but there was an actual question asked here.
The political question, and not the economic one, is the one that
decides the fate of vouchers.
>And the answer is: individuals can pay for education with vouchers
>because it is a private good, but can't pay for national defense with
>vouchers because it is a public good.
Of course they can. Whaddaya think this "right to bear arms" is all
about? It is supposed to be "national defense" - the defense of the
nation (i.e. the people) against its enemies, which may include other
Americans, other countries, and even its own government, if one would
believe the gun extremists.
Now I agree that a national defense consisting only of what
individuals came up with, would be a pretty poor national defense,
just as education that consisted only of homeschooling would be pretty
poor education. A national defense consisting of private
nuclear-armed security services might do better, but would likely lead
to internal chaos and mass destruction because most people see enemies
at home as being more "real" than the ones abroad.
But the reason we don't is not "economic theory", it is the political
theory that "we the people" have some common interests, including
"providing for the common defense" and "promoting the general
welfare", that make the latter two "public goods" regardless of the
economic theory definition. General welfare to most people includes
ensuring a high level of education in the populace, hence the
Republicans who wanted to eliminate the "unconstitutional Department
of Education" a few years ago have now given it more power and money
under the "No child left behind" initiative.
And there is no way to understand the goal of "no child left behind"
that is not dependent on the goal being understood as a "public good",
regardless of how it is defined.
lojbab
Stephen J. Fromm
> In article <b4cc5e7c.02101...@posting.google.com>,
> stephe...@verizon.net (Stephen J. Fromm) wrote:
>
> > Likewise, the *particular* aspect of public education that DLJ was
> > presumably referring to---namely, that having a literate public is a
> > prerequisite for not living in a 3rd world shithole---appears to be
> > both nonrival and nonexcludable.
>
> It's worth remembering that what matters for efficiency is what happens
> on the margin. It's not at all clear that, on the margin, your better
> education makes me better off. As with many other things, there are both
> positive and negative externalities. You might do a better job of voting
> for the good of our country--or of supporting laws that transfer wealth
> from me to you--for example.
> There are lots of things that are private goods with some externality.
> But since we have a very good mechanism for producing private goods and
> very poor political mechanisms for producing public goods, it makes
> sense to treat such "slightly public" goods as private goods unless the
> externality if very large.
So does that mean you're against public funding of education?
And what metric are you using to compare private and public goods?
Stephen J. Fromm
[snip]
> >> "Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one
> >> person is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is
> >> therefore said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's
> >> consumption of the good does not reduce its availability to anyone
> >> else.
> >> "A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where
> one
> >> person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
> >> same unit."
> >> -- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
>
> *consumer*, not to some third-party "beneficiary".
>
> It is the *consumer*, not third-party beneficiaries, who cannot pay
> for an identified portion of the good in a market transaction with the
> supplier, "precluding another person's consumption of the same unit".
That depends on how you define the good.
If you define the product as "not living in a 3rd world shithole,"
then you're wrong about education.
Best,
sjfromm
Stephen J. Fromm
[snip]
> > > to disease (and thus will consume fewer medical resources), less
> > > likely to transmit disease to others, a better worker, I will live a
> > > longer life so my work will contribute more to the welfare of others
> > > cumulatively, and so on.
> > >
> > > This does not make food a *public good*. Geeze.
> >
> > "...less likely to transmit disease to others..."
> >
> > How is this aspect not a public good? It is both nonrival and
> > nonexcludable.
>
> Because, as per the definition again, the "nonrival and nonexcludable"
> element of a public good is its *consumption* -- not whatever benefits
> or costs it may have to third parties. Those are "externalities".
Nonsense. You clearly don't understand the nature of vaccination.
What you're calling the "externality" is in fact the point of
vaccination programs. A vaccine can be far less than 100% effective
at the level of an individual, yet still effectively innoculate the
population at large *because* of these so-called "externalities".
It's precisely the argument vaccination advicates give in favor of
mandatory vaccination; without such global effects, or "externalities"
as you put it, there would be no merit whatsoever to such arguments.
Your reasoning on the subject of vaccination is yet another example of
the perils of thinking of everything in terms of atomic, private
transactions instead of at a larger scale.
Best,
sjfromm
Stephen J. Fromm
> On 17 Oct 2002 12:59:26 -0700, stephe...@verizon.net (Stephen J.
> Fromm) wrote:
>
> >"susupply" <susu...@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:<aome53$a4r$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>...> >> news:3DAE1557...@rogers.com...
> >> > From the current Forbes article The Most Expensive Homes In America at
> >> > http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2002/10/10/1011home.html
> >> >
> >> > While 15-bedroom mansions, massive swimming pools and oceanfront views
> >> > don't come cheap
> >>
> >> Thanks for the alert, David but I'm not in that market (yet). Still have
> >> problems meeting the monthly mortgage payment for the Sullivan Compound.
> >>
> >> But, As Paul O'Neill said, The Genius of American Capitalism; losers go
> >> under eventually. Too bad the same discipline is absent in public school
> >> districts.
> >
> >Yeah. Too bad the same discipline is absent in the US military.
>
> Lots of officers get bounced from the military for performance
> reasons.
>
> In fact low-performing officers are culled from it regularly -- the
> "up or out" rule you know, if you don't earn a promotion in
> competition with your peers, you go out. Just about the opposite of
> teacher tenure in the public schools, I'd say.
Balogne. What performance measures are they using? (Ditto for the
corporate world---how do we measure production at the managerial level
there?) And what is the distribution of time served in the military,
the concentration of people who get yanked, their rank, etc? Poor
teachers who don't get yanked are more akin to enlisted men. Is there
much evidence that poorly performing enlisted men get yanked?
And what about performance measures for weapons? The Patriot missile
had a kill ratio of near zero in the Gulf War. Was that yanked?
> Now as to other governmental organizations that never, ever, go out of
> business no matter how long since their purpose has passed, yeah, it
> would be nice if there was some sort of systemic discipline to close
> them down when they become net loss producers, like the market closes
> loss-producing businesses. But with civil service protection
> guaranteeing nobody can ever lose a job, and political patronage
> relationships guaranteeing no agency can ever be closed, what are ya
> gonna do? ;-(
I'd agree, except that I'm struck by how these arguments are almost
always directed towards things like education and welfare agencies,
and not the military rathole. When it *is* directed at the latter,
it's typically in reference to pork, as opposed to systemic problems.
Best,
sjfromm
Stephen J. Fromm
[snip]
> Dopier and dopier.The reason vaccination is a public good is that you
> can't buy herd immunity by getting yourself innoculated -- and you can
> catch immunity from a neighbour who has been innoculated with, e.g.
> chickenpox.
Ah...I see someone else has already made my point...
Stephen J. Fromm
[snip]
> Patrick,
>
> Your general position is both wrong and ridiculous, but here I think you
> reach some new peak of, well, of oddity.
> You are making no sense at all, and I give up on you.
>
> -dlj.
You can have even more fun if you ask him the meaning of "ethnic cleansing".
Stephen J. Fromm
[snip]
> That's a classic defense of government
> funding for education. It's a pretty good
> argument, but I am not persuaded. Any private
> good can be sifted to uncover third party
> benefits. Education may be especially easy
> to yield up third party benefits. But any
> private good might yield at least something.
> It isn't unique to education except, perhaps,
> as a matter of degree. I have made a bold
> claim. Can I back it up? Food is a private
> good. When folks buy food third parties don't
> have to look at those people starving, and so
> compassionate third parties benefit. But that
> doesn't justify government funding of food.
Grinch already came up with this example.
The government can, and does, means test for funding food (food
stamps). That way, we don't have government funding most food
consumption, and yet have the benefit of not feeling like we're living
in a third world country.
> Cars are a private good. When folks buy cars
> third parties are not troubled by requests to
> share a ride. But that doesn't justify
> government provision of cars. Disneyland is
> a private good. And when folks buy tickets
> and enjoy the day there, they have smiles and
> are friendly. Third parties will benefit from
> those smiles, but that doesn't justify
> government funding of Disneyland. Same with
[snip]
I would certainly agree that the government should not fund education
in a limitless fashion---otherwise, we'd all be in school perpetually
and the economy would grind to a halt.
But the devils in the details. Where would *you* put the cutoff? 8th
grade? 2nd grade?
Best,
sjfromm
Stephen J. Fromm
Sounds like an argument to soak the rich to me.
Best,
sjfromm
Stephen J. Fromm
[snip]
> Also keep in mind that private schools have a higher teacher turnover
> rate - with those teachers moving into a public school position
> presumably for better wages and benefits.
>
> My experience sending my daughter to a highly touted private school
> was that I learned they did things the same way we were doing them
> in the local public elementary only not as well.
Oh oh...you're challenging the notion that markets figure everything
out on their own...
Best,
sjfromm
Stephen J. Fromm
[snip]
> >Who the hell cares whether education is _defined_ as a "public good"?
>
> The person who asked "Why can individuals use vouchers to pay for
> education but not for national defense?"
That was probably me.
I don't care that much (though it's not entirely irrelevant). I'm
more interested in the possibility that right-wingers like you use
these arguments in an inconsistent fashion---to wit, spending on the
military (I prefer "military" since no one can argue about that,
whereas "defense" is quite arguable) is OK, but spending on education,
or the current education system, has to be examined in fine detail.
(Ditto for things like environmental regulations.)
> >The important question is, as always, a political one: do we prefer a
> >world with more educated people in it, or fewer?
>
> Well, you can *change* the subject to any other "important" thing you
> like -- but there was an actual question asked here.
>
> And the answer is: individuals can pay for education with vouchers
> because it is a private good, but can't pay for national defense with
> vouchers because it is a public good.
>
> That's reality -- and the dictionary definition *explains* why it is
> so. Now, you can wax philosophic about the definitions of 'roses' and
> 'skunk cabbage' and such all you like, but you won't change that
> reality one bit.
That's reality? "Defense" is somewhat excludable. What if we were to
bring home all the US soldiers in Europe? Aren't they "defending"
Europe and not the US?
Oh, I forget...when benefits to "3rd parties" accrue from something
like education, they're "positive externalities", but when they accrue
from something like "national defense," they're a core part of the
definition of the good.
> BTW, a great many important questions have much more to do with
> reality than with politics. Most, I suspect. ;-)
Uh huh. Would that it were so.
[snip]
Best,
sjfromm
David Friedman
run schooling, two points:
1. In a country that fights wars (most countries, most of the time, are
at peace, of course) there is a highly visible test of how the military
is doing, which provides at least some pressure for the people running
the military to do a good job. That's less true for the U.S., because we
haven't fought a war with anything close to an equal opponent for a long
time. On the other hand, we managed to lose a war with a much weaker
opponent in Vietnam, and I think that imposed serious costs on the
military, in loss of public reputation and status.
2. As other people have pointed out, it isn't clear we have an
alternative to government production in the case of the military. So as
long as we think we need to defend ourselves, we do it by the (very
inefficient) mechanism of government production.
In the case of schooling, on the other hand, we are dealing with an
ordinary industry, in most areas potentially a competitive one. We have
lots of historical experience of schooling without government
involvement (see West's book _Education and the Industrial Revolution_)
and contemporary experience with schools that survive despite having to
compete with a heavily subsidized government alternative. One can argue
that schooling generates a positive externality, although the argument
is less clear than many think, but if so that is an argument for
government subsidy not government production.
David Friedman
stephe...@verizon.net (Stephen J. Fromm) wrote:
> > There are lots of things that are private goods with some externality.
> > But since we have a very good mechanism for producing private goods and
> > very poor political mechanisms for producing public goods, it makes
> > sense to treat such "slightly public" goods as private goods unless the
> > externality if very large.
> So does that mean you're against public funding of education?
I think we would be better off--and better educated--if governments had
never become involved with schooling. Given where we now are, I favor a
voucher system, but I would hope that in the long run it would provide a
transition to a fully private system. Not only are governments bad at
running schools, government control over schooling ultimately presents
the same sorts of threats to a free society as government control over
speech and the press--just starting younger.
> And what metric are you using to compare private and public goods?
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Goods are goods--things that people
value. The difference between a private good and a public good isn't the
nature of what the consumer gets--the same service can be provided via
one technology as a public good (radio broadcast of music) and via
another as a private good (concert, record).
"Public good," as a technical term in economics, refers to two
characteristics of a good. One--the one I think essential--is that it
isn't practical for the producer of the good to control who gets it.
That means that our ordinary mechanism for making sure that goods get
produced if and only if they are worth producing--the producer sees if a
consumer is willing to pay him at least the cost of production, and
produces the good for that consumer if he is--doesn't work for public
goods. Hence, while public goods are sometimes produced privately (radio
broadcasts, for example, or this post), we have much weaker reasons for
expecting private production to give us something close to the optimal
quantity and quality than we do for private goods. That's an argument
for government production or subsidy.
I find it a less compelling argument than most economists do, because
our mechanisms for getting political institutions to do the right
thing--in this case, produce the optimal quantity and quality of public
goods--are very poor. It turns out, if you try to use economics to
analyze the "political market," that the reason they are very poor is
that the same sorts of market failures (public goods are one example)
that occasionally get in the way of the working of the private market
are endemic on the political market. So we end up trying to choose
between two very imperfect alternative mechanisms for producing public
goods.
The second characteristic usually associated with a public good is that
it is non-rivalrous in consumption--my listening to a radio station
doesn't either increase the cost to the station or decrease the quantity
and quality of listening available to you. I regard that as less
important. A good that had that characteristic but not the
first--non-rivalrous but excludable--is simply a natural monopoly. A
good that is rivalrous but non-excludable, on the other hand, would
still present the public good problem.
I hope that helps. You can find a much more extensive discussion of
these questions in Chapters 18 and 19 of my _Price Theory_, webbed at:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Price_Theory/PThy_ToC.html
Of course, not all of it will make sense to you if you haven't read the
first 17 chapters.
David Friedman
Mason Clark <masonc...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Oct 2002 16:33:49 GMT, David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.com>
> wrote:
>
> >There are lots of things that are private goods with some externality.
> >But since we have a very good mechanism for producing private goods and
> >very poor political mechanisms for producing public goods, it makes
> >sense to treat such "slightly public" goods as private goods unless the
> >externality if very large.
>
> An expression of an ideology, basically anarchist: government is bad.
More precisely, an expression of a conclusion and a reference to the
argument that leads to it. Carried far enough--as I would carry it, but
many others would not--it leads to anarchism. But that's a conclusion
not an assumption.
> C'mon, look around you at all the "politically" produced goods.
> Is there inefficiency? Of course? Is there inefficiency in private
> production? You bet there is. It's a close contest. For the political
> goods the public votes. For the private goods the public votes with
> purchase money. Which is more "efficient" is a question which is
> only answered on the basis of ideology.
I gather you aren't actually familiar with either the arguments or the
evidence, so simply assume they don't exist. There are very large
differences between the logic of the two kinds of "voting," which make
the analysis of private markets simpler than that of political markets,
and give us reasons to believe that the former do a much better job of
giving people what they want than the latter.
C. P. Weidling
> In article <b4cc5e7c.0210...@posting.google.com>,
> stephe...@verizon.net (Stephen J. Fromm) wrote:
>
> > > There are lots of things that are private goods with some externality.
> > > But since we have a very good mechanism for producing private goods and
> > > very poor political mechanisms for producing public goods, it makes
> > > sense to treat such "slightly public" goods as private goods unless the
> > > externality if very large.
>
> > So does that mean you're against public funding of education?
>
> I think we would be better off--and better educated--if governments had
> never become involved with schooling. Given where we now are, I favor a
> voucher system, but I would hope that in the long run it would provide a
> transition to a fully private system. Not only are governments bad at
> running schools, government control over schooling ultimately presents
> the same sorts of threats to a free society as government control over
> speech and the press--just starting younger.
>
...<snip>...
I'm skeptical about this claim. Nowadays, we're all used to stories
of how the Feds screw things up. But that's not always the case. At
the local level, you have local prejudices, and sometimes local
corruption can be worse than anything on the larger level. (This is
an oversimplification of what I'm really thinking in the back of my
mind, which is that things happen faster on a smaller scale, and more
frequently, so more often you see corrupt local systems, but
eventually, because it is a chaotic system, some great political storm
could lead to a completely corrupt big government, as well.)
So probably, what would happen is that some schools would be very good
and others very bad, catering to, and re-inforcing, local prejudices.
Think of the segregated South (and I grew up in an environment of
separate schools, restrooms, and drinking fountains for colored people
in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.) Or think of religious communities and
wacko cults indoctrinating their children.
I do agree that it's a good thing for schools to feel the stick of
competition, and for parents to have some choices. So maybe vouchers
are the best way to navigate between the Scylla of schools that are
unaccountable, and the Charybdis of completely local yokel education.
(That last sentence may make you wince, but like a certain class of
annoying TV commercials, it may help my message to stay stuck in your
mind.)
--
Replace ragwind.loc or bluemouth.loc with rahul for my real email address
tonyp
"David Friedman" <dd...@daviddfriedman.com> wrote
> On the general comparison between government run military and
government
> run schooling, two points:
>
> 1. In a country that fights wars (most countries, most of the time,
are
> at peace, of course) there is a highly visible test of how the
military
> is doing, which provides at least some pressure for the people
running
> the military to do a good job.
At that level of abstraction, we can also say: "In a country that
trades with the world (and most countries do, most of the time) there
is a highly visible test of how the education system is doing, etc."
The feedback is not immediate, but neither is it immediate for the
military, as you point out.
> 2. As other people have pointed out, it isn't clear we have an
> alternative to government production in the case of the military. So
as
> long as we think we need to defend ourselves, we do it by the (very
> inefficient) mechanism of government production.
> In the case of schooling, on the other hand, we are dealing with an
> ordinary industry, in most areas potentially a competitive one.
If you think the present educational structure is not subject to
"competition", you haven't shopped for a house recently.
-- Tony P.
Herman Rubin
<racqu...@nospam.hvc.rr.com> wrote:
>On 19 Oct 2002 23:22:20 -0700, oldn...@mindspring.com (Grinch) wrote:
>>~~
>>"Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one person
>>is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is therefore
>>said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's consumption of
>>the good does not reduce its availability to anyone else .
>>"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
>>person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
>>same unit."
>>-- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
>Grinch, using the definitions above, can you explain to me how it is
>that "government-supplied education" (public schools) can be
>considered anything OTHER than a "public good"? It seems to me that
>it fits the definition you provided perfectly in that the "cost" of
>the good is zero to ALL who attend, all CAN attend, and the
>"consumption" of the good has no effect on others in the class/school?
Even if all CAN attend, the specific number attending
affects both the cost and the availability of the
education; schooling is NOT education, and the only
"good" of schooling as such is keeping the children out
of the way during school hours and while traveling.
When the educationists imposed essentially mandatory
age grouping and teaching to the level of those in the
classroom, they reduced the education of those who, in
the previous curriculum-oriented program, were learning
far more. Keeping bright children with their age group
causes them to take many years more to learn the same
amount, unless they effectively bypass the school, but
even then, there is a considerable loss.
There are many cases where a bright child has been either
turned off by the dumbed-down curriculum, or has had to
suppress his or her mental ability to fit in with the
chronological peers. The damage the public schools does
to those who have the mental ability to really do things
is probably far greater than all the educational costs,
and at the least, they have lost years out of their lives.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Deptartment of Statistics, Purdue University
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
susupply
"Stephen J. Fromm" <stephe...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:b4cc5e7c.02102...@posting.google.com...
I think David has had all the fun he can take about now. But as I told you
months ago, ethnic cleansing is what the Arab world wants to do to Israel.
What Israel is doing is self-defense.
susupply
<racqu...@nospam.hvc.rr.com>
Chief of misc.ed's Council of Economic Advisers,
wrote in message news:d894rusm2uf06an44...@4ax.com...
> You can't measure teacher "productivity" since teachers do not produce
> a "product" in the sense that industry/business uses the term.
Caroline Minter Hoxby disagrees, as do numerous other economists. But how
about that the children who spent X amount of time in a teacher's classroom
come out knowing more than when they went in?
> All
> that can be reasonably measured to assess teachers' efforts is their
> competence in following the dictates of the states and the districts
> in which they work.
You have to hope that's true, given the demonstration of incompetence you've
been treating everyone to here.
> As to private schools that pay lower salaries often having "the
> superior teachers", the opposite is more normally the case. It used
> to be true that the parochial schools would have very well-qualified
> teachers (that consisted largely of clergy). That is no longer the
> usualy case, and barring the handful of teachers that serve private
> schools for altruistic reasons, the usual situation is that the low
> pay attracts people who cannot gain employment in the public schools.
Since you just above told us that you can't measure teacher productivity,
how can you make this claim?
> What is REALLY different about the schools over the last 40 years is
> the kids themselves (as well as their parents). Everyone today has
> "rights" and exercises them liberally to the extent that discipline
> cannot be maintained. Many parents abet their kids in misbehavior and
> lack of effort. And there are too many distractions now: cars, jobs,
> etc. Kids simply do not take their "work" in school very seriously.
As opposed to their science teachers who don't understand the concept of
negative numbers?
susupply
<racqu...@nospam.hvc.rr.com>
who, in another thread was lamenting: "Kids simply do not take their "work"
in school very seriously".
wrote in message news:bs75rukqoo2c7f433...@4ax.com...
> Grinch, using the definitions above, can you explain to me how it is
> that "government-supplied education" (public schools) can be
> considered anything OTHER than a "public good"? It seems to me that
> it fits the definition you provided perfectly in that the "cost" of
> the good is zero to ALL who attend, all CAN attend, and the
> "consumption" of the good has no effect on others in the class/school?
Brilliant, Ron just destroyed all the "smaller class size" arguments in one
fell swoop. I hope he doesn't complain when he finds 10,000 students in his
physics class next term. Since it's a public good, he'll be able to teach
all of them just as easily as teaching one student.
At any rate, I think the upstate NY water supply may need to be checked to
see if Al Qaeda hasn't doped it with chemicals that make students AND their
teachers non-serious.
susupply
"Donna Metler" <nospam_...@bellsouth.net>
who, as usual, has a lot of interesting things to say, but nothing that
gives any support to David Lloyd-Jones contention that paying higher
salaries to teachers would improve education.
wrote in message news:7Rfs9.2150$uu1...@news.bellsouth.net...
> I'm not sure that follows. I'm a public school teacher, and I admit that
I'm
> on a different level than many of my co-workers (it is always a shock to
> hear someone complaining about having to re-take the certification exam
> because their score was too low, or to proofread some of the papers others
> are writing for graduate classes for continuing certification). However,
> from what I've seen, the loss of productivity between now and 40 years ago
> has a lot more to do with the breakdown of discipline and parental
support.
40 years ago there was not anything like "someone complaining about having
to re-take the certification exam". And it doesn't matter who is at fault
for this deterioration in the quality of teachers, for our purposes.
[snip]
> To be blunt, teaching isn't the same, because the schools and children
> aren't the same. And this isn't the fault of the teachers, but the family
> structure and societal expectations. 30 years ago, I would never dreamed
of
> accusing a teacher of abuse because she berated me because my work wasn't
> satisfactory, made me sit in a corner, or put me in the hallway-now
teachers
> can lose their jobs for all of the above. All it takes is one parent with
an
> agenda, and sometimes one or more students with an agenda.
Abolish government operated public schools, and the above problem would
vanish.
> I would submit that it is not that private schools have better teachers,
but
> that they have better students and better parents.
The evidence does not support this. In fact, we've several "laboratory
experiments" from places like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Washington D.C., NYC,
that suggest otherwise.
David Friedman
c...@rahul.net (C. P. Weidling) wrote:
> > I think we would be better off--and better educated--if governments had
> > never become involved with schooling. Given where we now are, I favor a
> > voucher system, but I would hope that in the long run it would provide a
> > transition to a fully private system. Not only are governments bad at
> > running schools, government control over schooling ultimately presents
> > the same sorts of threats to a free society as government control over
> > speech and the press--just starting younger.
> >
> ...<snip>...
> I'm skeptical about this claim. Nowadays, we're all used to stories
> of how the Feds screw things up. But that's not always the case. At
> the local level, you have local prejudices, and sometimes local
> corruption can be worse than anything on the larger level.
I'm not sure where "the Feds" came into this argument. Schooling in the
U.S. at present is overwhelmingly funded and controlled by state and
local governments.
> (This is
> an oversimplification of what I'm really thinking in the back of my
> mind, which is that things happen faster on a smaller scale, and more
> frequently, so more often you see corrupt local systems, but
> eventually, because it is a chaotic system, some great political storm
> could lead to a completely corrupt big government, as well.)
On the whole, I suspect local socialism, as in the American school
system, is preferable to national socialism. But I wasn't arguing for
either. I was arguing for a system in which parents got to decide what
school their kids went to, and the money went with the kids--either as a
voucher or as tuition paid by the parents. So the comparison is not to
local governments but to grocery stores, bookstores, Berlitz language
training, and the like.
> So probably, what would happen is that some schools would be very good
> and others very bad, catering to, and re-inforcing, local prejudices.
> Think of the segregated South (and I grew up in an environment of
> separate schools, restrooms, and drinking fountains for colored people
> in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.) Or think of religious communities and
> wacko cults indoctrinating their children.
Given the choice, I would prefer a society where different children get
"indoctrinated" with different beliefs--and then come into a wider world
as they grow up in which they can discover that others disagree with
them and why--to a world in which everyone is uniformly indoctrinated
with the same beliefs. To put it differently, why doesn't the same
argument you are offering imply that only the views the government
decides are true can be published in books and magazines? After all, we
wouldn't want religious communities and wack cults indoctrinating people
with their screwy ideas, would we?
Turn it around. Are you really comfortable with the idea that it's the
governments job to decide that some people's beliefs are wacky, and then
make sure their children are "educated" out of their parents errors?
David Friedman
"tonyp" <to...@world.std.com> wrote:
> > 2. As other people have pointed out, it isn't clear we have an
> > alternative to government production in the case of the military. So
> as
> > long as we think we need to defend ourselves, we do it by the (very
> > inefficient) mechanism of government production.
> > In the case of schooling, on the other hand, we are dealing with an
> > ordinary industry, in most areas potentially a competitive one.
>
>
> If you think the present educational structure is not subject to
> "competition", you haven't shopped for a house recently.
But the people who run the schools don't get the gains or losses when
property values go up or down as a result of the schools in that area
doing better or worse. On the other hand, a private producer, of
schooling or anything else, loses money if consumers think the quality
of his product is bad, gains if they think it is good, ceteris paribus.
David Friedman
stephe...@verizon.net (Stephen J. Fromm) wrote:
///
> I don't care that much (though it's not entirely irrelevant). I'm
> more interested in the possibility that right-wingers like you use
> these arguments in an inconsistent fashion---to wit, spending on the
> military (I prefer "military" since no one can argue about that,
> whereas "defense" is quite arguable) is OK, but spending on education,
> or the current education system, has to be examined in fine detail.
> (Ditto for things like environmental regulations.)
As a matter of consistency, since you are using "military" instead of
"defense," shouldn't you use "schooling" instead of "education?"
The logic is the same for both cases. If you want to support an
institution you assume, in your choice of words, that the institution
produces what people want it to produce. If you are pro-military, you
call military "defense," because people want to be defended. If you are
pro-public schooling, you call public schooling "public education"
because people want themselves and their children to be educated.
In each case, this assumes away an important part of the argument. One
reason to be in favor of less military spending is the belief that a
smaller military would defend us better--because it would be less likely
to be used to intervene in foreign quarrels. On reason to be opposed to
public schooling is the belief that children would get better educated
under some alternative set of institutions.
...
> That's reality? "Defense" is somewhat excludable. What if we were to
> bring home all the US soldiers in Europe? Aren't they "defending"
> Europe and not the US?
The argument would be that they are defending the U.S. in Europe, and
that they can't just defend me and not you.
Of course, it isn't entirely true. As I suggested a very long time ago,
a provider of defense could threaten to exclude, say, Hawaii from its
defense perimeter if people in Hawaii didn't put up enough money. And
the U.S. military could tell U.S. firms operating abroad that it will
threaten to bomb countries that confiscate their property--but only if
the firms help pay for the military. So defense is somewhat excludable,
although not very much, but not for the reason you offer.
David Friedman
On the contrary. She is describing the mechanism by which "markets
figure" things out.
David Friedman
stephe...@verizon.net (Stephen J. Fromm) wrote:
It's a much morncy?teresting argument than that.
David Friedman
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
> It's a much morncy?teresting argument than that.
That was supposed to be:
It's a much more interesting argument than that.
Grinch
<dlloy...@rogers.com> wrote:
>Anonymous Grinch wrote:
>> On October 18,2002, David Lloyd-Jones <dlloy...@rogers.com> entered
>> the steel cage for his death match with the dictionary, writing:
>
>Grinch,
>
>I see you've adopted Patrick's childish spasm of starting your posts
>with a schoolyard insult.
David, if you check google you'll see I was being childish here long
before Patrick discovered this group. So you've just made yet another
error. ;-)
But I *do* read the posts I respond to, quote them correctly, answer
questions asked of me, and *don't* snip-and-change-the-subject to
cover my mistakes.
And I only enjoy my childish spasms with people who don't read what
they respond to, and do willfully misquote others, snip questions
asked of them, and snip-and-change-the-subject to cover their
mistakes.
With such people I kinda feel entitled. Fathersmanifesto was one.
Remember him?
In this thread, you've been another -- with your constant refusal to
deal with the dictionary, lame insistence that you are arguing with me
instead of the dictionary, snipping everything you don't want to deal
with, resorting to invective, and willful misquotations.
I'd think it would be easier for you just to say you think the
dictionary is wrong. But as you insist, here we go again....
>This one backfires, drawing attention to your
>own reliance on the crutch of a couple of words pulled out of a single
>dictionary definition -- rather than on the contextual meaning of what a
>"public good" is.
Note that you snipped this *entire* definition, with its full context,
rather than use it yourself to show my error!
But I'll restore the entire definition, with full context, and repeat
a question or two that you snipped, to give you another chance to
explain yourself *on the merits*. Fair?
Oh, I'll also point out another bad error you just made.
>>>Grinch wrote:
>>>
>>>>Because, as per the definition again, the "nonrival and nonexcludable"
>>>>element of a public good is its *consumption* -- not whatever benefits
>>>>or costs it may have to third parties. Those are "externalities".
>>>
>>>This is the argument that since a car and wheels are diffferent things,
>>>therefore if it has wheels it can't be a car.
>>
>> What a bizarre statement. In any event, there is no argument at all,
>> only a reference to the dictionary. To wit, yet again:
>
>How good of you to simplify things by stating up front that you don't
>understand.
>
>Your ridiculous proposition was "This has externalities, so it can't be
>a public good."
I said *no such thing*.
What I did say, several times, is: the fact that a good has positive
externalities does not make it a public good.
E.g., I wrote: "positive externalities do not a 'public good' make."
Now, you *do* see the difference between what I actually said and what
you falsely claim I said, don't you?
"Externalities do not make a public good" is HARDLY the same as
"If it has externalities it can't be a public good". Right?
So why would you misrepresent what I said that way? Tsk, tsk.
> I parodied that as "This has wheels, so it can't be a car."
>Cars tend to have wheels, just as public goods have externalities; in
>fact it's of their essences in both cases.
So when I say: "The fact that something has wheels doesn't make it a
car"; what you hear is: "If it has wheels it can't be a car".
What a wonderful parody! Usenet logic in action.
Like I said, bizarre.
(And BTW -- positive externalities are *not* the essence of the
dictionary definition of a "public good", as you shall see from the
dictionary yet again.
You are for the nth time reapeating the silly "If it is good for
the public it is a 'public good'". Stop it! ;-) ]
>You say that you couldn't understand this. That's exactly what I had
>pointed out in my earlier two posts: you don't understanmd this.
>
>It is a pleasure to have you confirm my point.
You are certainly confirming who understands what, including how
parodies work.
Now you can confirm your understanding of what the *dictionary* says
is a "public good". I will restore it completely, in full context,
with two very simple little illustrative questions -- all of which
you've snipped before.
Try answering something asked of you, for once.
~~
"Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one person
is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is therefore
said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's consumption of
the good does not reduce its availability to anyone else .
"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
same unit."
-- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
~~
QUESTION #1.... (quoting what was snipped before)
From the dictionary:
"Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one person
is available to others at no extra cost." So...
[] If a radio broadcast signal is supplied to one person, is it also
available to others a no extra cost? Yes it is, so the dictionary says
it is a "public good".
[] If a lighthouse signal is supplied to one ship at sea, is it also
available to other ships at no extra cost? Yes it is, so the
dictionary says it is a "public good".
[] If an education is provided to one student, is it also available to
other students at *no extra cost*? No, it isn't! So the dictionary
says it is not a "public good".
Now, if you are going to keep insisting that education is a public
good, then you are going to have to say that either:
a) education provided to one student *is* available to other students
at *no extra cost*; or
b) those fool editors at MIT don't know what they are talking about,
and have lead poor naive me astray.
THE QUESTION: Which do you choose?
~~
QUESTION #2.... (quoting again what was snipped)
> > With a vaccine, OTOH, once a dose is used it is gone.
>
> Dopier and dopier
It's not gone?? If a vaccine is given to one person, can it be given
to other persons at no extra cost?
Watch out, David! The dictionary continues...!
"A public good is therefore said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as
one person's consumption of the good does not reduce its availability
to anyone else."
If one person is given a dose of a vaccine, is that dose's
availability to other persons reduced?
If so, the dictionary editors are going to say it is *not* a "public
good", I'm afraid.
>.The reason vaccination is a public good is that you
> can't buy herd immunity by getting yourself innoculated -- and you can
> catch immunity from a neighbour who has been innoculated with, e.g.
> chickenpox.
"Herd immunity"?? Another bizarre comment that seems to flee from
the dictionary's plain statements. But those dang dictionary editors
say "he can run, but he can't hide"....
"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
same unit."
THE QUESTION: Hey, if one person consumes a unit of a vaccine, does
that "preclude another person's consumption of the same unit"?
If "yes", well, that makes a vaccine a private good, by the *plain
dictionary definition*.
Do you disagree with the dictionary on this?
Paul Zrimsek
<dd...@daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
>One can argue
>that schooling generates a positive externality, although the argument
>is less clear than many think, but if so that is an argument for
>government subsidy not government production.
And if so, that is an argument only for enough subsidy to internalize
the externality-- not subsidy of the entire cost.
Paul Zrimsek pzri...@earthlink.net
-------------------------------------------------------------
She's the sort of woman who lives for others-- you can always
tell the others by their hunted expression. --C.S. Lewis
Grinch
Fromm) wrote:
>oldn...@mindspring.com (Grinch) wrote in message news:<403da94.02101...@posting.google.com>...
>[snip]
>> > > All of society benefits because I will be stronger, less susceptible
>> > > to disease (and thus will consume fewer medical resources), less
>> > > likely to transmit disease to others, a better worker, I will live a
>> > > longer life so my work will contribute more to the welfare of others
>> > > cumulatively, and so on.
>> > >
>> > > This does not make food a *public good*. Geeze.
>> >
>> > "...less likely to transmit disease to others..."
>> >
>> > How is this aspect not a public good? It is both nonrival and
>> > nonexcludable.
>>
>> Because, as per the definition again, the "nonrival and nonexcludable"
>> element of a public good is its *consumption* -- not whatever benefits
>> or costs it may have to third parties. Those are "externalities".
>
>Nonsense. You clearly don't understand the nature of vaccination.
>What you're calling the "externality" is in fact the point of
>vaccination programs.
Of course it is.
You are missing the point entirely.
>A vaccine can be far less than 100% effective
>at the level of an individual, yet still effectively innoculate the
>population at large *because* of these so-called "externalities".
>It's precisely the argument vaccination advicates give in favor of
>mandatory vaccination; without such global effects, or "externalities"
>as you put it, there would be no merit whatsoever to such arguments.
>
>Your reasoning on the subject of vaccination is yet another example of
>the perils of thinking of everything in terms of atomic, private
>transactions instead of at a larger scale.
Nonsense. This is not a "policy" issue at all -- good policy, bad
policy, has nothing to do with it.
Answer a simple question: When you administer a unit of a vaccine to
individual A, can you thereafter administer the *same* unit of the
vaccine to other people? At no extra cost? Or do you have to produce
more vaccine, at extra cost, for others?
Back to the dictionary:
"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
same unit."
If the second person (and on) can't consume the "same unit" of the
vaccine as the first, the vaccine is a "private good" and not a
"public good" by the plain dictionary definition. Simple as that.
That's all -- that's the end!!!
You and David keep confusing the *effects* of an item as determining
whether it is a "public good" or not. Everything you said about
vaccines relates to their *effects*.
But an item's effects, good or bad, have NOTHING to do with whether it
is a "public good" or not. They are *irrelevant*
An item's status as a public good or not relates to how it is provided
-- how it is PAID FOR. See the difference?
"Public goods" may be paid for by private parties -- such as radio
broadcasts are paid for by listeners and advertisers. And "private
goods" can be paid for by the government -- such as inoculations. So
that's not the point of the definition.
What *is* the point -- for about the 10th time -- is that private
goods are paid for *by the individually consumed unit* (like apples,
cars, vaccinations, smallpox samples, atom bombs, etc.) while public
goods *cannot be* (radio broadcasts, lighthouse signals, national
defense, and so on).
And that has many practical implications if you are trying to figure
out a way of providing the good, and paying for it.
A lighthouse can't charge a passing ship for the amount of its
signal the ship uses, but a drug manufacturer will charge the
purchaser of drug dosages by the amount purchased (whether the
purchaser is the government, individuals, whoever.)
So lighthouses and vaccines have to be financed in very different
ways.
I mean, I don't know how to make it any clearer.
The term "public good" seems to confuse many people into thinking it
means "something that is good for the public" -- which it *doesn't* --
so maybe whoever thought up the terminology 100 years ago should have
used something different.
But whether something has good, bad, or noxious effects for the public
has *nothing* to do with whether it is a "public good".
The issue relates to POSSIBLE WAYS TO PAY FOR IT -- which are
*different* for public and private goods.
And that's why individuals can pay for their education with cash or
vouchers in market transactions, but can't pay for their individual
share of national defense with cash or vouchers the same way.
If that's not clear enough, I'm going to have to give up.
>Best,
>
>sjfromm
Grinch
wrote:
>
>"Grinch" <oldn...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
>> >Who the hell cares whether education is _defined_ as a "public
>good"?
>>
>> The person who asked "Why can individuals use vouchers to pay for
>> education but not for national defense?"
>
>
>Well, individuals can use _cash_ to buy education for themselves, for
>sure. But if you want to talk about vouchers, as the term is used in
>contemporary US politics, then you are talking about education as a
>collective enterprise. Vouchers are funded by taxes, after all. I
>have no kids myself. I pay taxes to fund the education of other
>people's children. I'd have to pay the taxes even if vouchers were
>the distribution mechanism. So the "education" we're talking about is
>"publicly funded education", vouchers or no vouchers.
>
>Now, why in hell has the public chosen to fund education, as well as
>national defense? I suggest it's because "the public" considers both
>things "goods" from its point of view. The public may be ignorant of
>the definition of "public good" as a term of art in economics, but I
>bet that even if you explained it to them, the public would _still_
>choose to fund education collectively. Or do you think they would
>not? Or should not?
But why *can't* you pay for your individual share of national defense
with cash or vouchers?
I mean, if voters should decide that's a good thing to do for defense,
as voters in some places have decided it's a good thing for education.
Why *can't* there be a "national defense market" where individuals
buy their individual shares of national defense at negotiated prices,
like there most certainly is an education market where individuals,
organizations and governments buy specific eduational services for
themselves at negotiated prices.
That's the question you aren't dealing with.
The answer has to do with the difference beween "public goods" and
"private goods".
>> BTW, a great many important questions have much more to do with
>> reality than with politics. Most, I suspect. ;-)
>
>"Important" is a political judgement :-)
Really ??? ;-)
>
>-- Tony P.
>
racqu...@nospam.hvc.rr.com
Rubin) wrote:
>In article <bs75rukqoo2c7f433...@4ax.com>,
> <racqu...@nospam.hvc.rr.com> wrote:
>>On 19 Oct 2002 23:22:20 -0700, oldn...@mindspring.com (Grinch) wrote:
>
>>>~~
>>>"Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one person
>>>is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is therefore
>>>said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's consumption of
>>>the good does not reduce its availability to anyone else .
>
>>>"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
>>>person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
>>>same unit."
>
>>>-- M.I.T. Dictionary of Economics.
>
>>Grinch, using the definitions above, can you explain to me how it is
>>that "government-supplied education" (public schools) can be
>>considered anything OTHER than a "public good"? It seems to me that
>>it fits the definition you provided perfectly in that the "cost" of
>>the good is zero to ALL who attend, all CAN attend, and the
>>"consumption" of the good has no effect on others in the class/school?
>
>Even if all CAN attend, the specific number attending
>affects both the cost and the availability of the
>education; schooling is NOT education, and the only
>"good" of schooling as such is keeping the children out
>of the way during school hours and while traveling.
I've cut the stuff that is nonresponsive to what I wrote.. Again,
Herman, there is NO "cost" to the "consumer" here, and EVERYONE is
guaranteed a place. Your ideology is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Narnia Fan
> Narnia Fan wrote:
>
> > In considering non-pecuniary benefits of
> > education, I was reminded that education
> > has at least one non-pecuniary harm on
> > the public at large: a highly educated
> > person may be more qualified to sneer at
> > others, which is a net loss to the public.
>
> Does Narnia Fan have any empirical evidence for this?
None. But I am frequently told that many or most people are
hopelessly addicted to status...for example, that they don't
mind hurting themselves so long as it makes others suffer
even more. I find that repellent, but I can believe that
there are such people.
> Does Narnia Fan know of *any* ethical tradition in which "more
> qualified" is defined to allow his claim to make sense?
>
> May I suggest that what we have here is a fine example of the very
> strained and peculiar reasoning needed to make the anti-public-education
> position? No, he's not arguing for vouchers: the argument is against
> education, indiscriminately.
Hi David.
I'm not arguing for vouchers. That particular piece of the
argument was almost a throwaway comment. It wasn't in the main
line of the argument, so if it is disproven the rest of the argument
might (or might not) be correct.
I'm in favor of education. What I was trying to do with that
throwaway comment is to speculate on the downsides of the
status quo. A cost benefit analysis of any project which claimed
that the project had no non-monetary costs would raise my
skepticism at least a litte. I figure every silver lining has
a little cloud. So I asked myself what might be the
non-monetary costs? You don't accept the one I suggested. May
I ask if you can think of a more plausible one? It might be
true that education is an unalloyed good. It might be true. But
saying so about any other project sounds like a overenthusiastic
claim. So can you think of a non-monetary downside?
NarniaFan
ro...@telus.net
Zrimsek) wrote:
>On Sun, 20 Oct 2002 16:31:18 GMT, David Friedman
><dd...@daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
>
>>One can argue
>>that schooling generates a positive externality, although the argument
>>is less clear than many think, but if so that is an argument for
>>government subsidy not government production.
>
>And if so, that is an argument only for enough subsidy to internalize
>the externality-- not subsidy of the entire cost.
And if the externality exceeds the cost...?
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
Fromm) wrote:
>"susupply" <susu...@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:<aome53$a4r$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>...
>> "David Lloyd-Jones" <dlloy...@rogers.com> wrote in message
>> news:3DAE1557...@rogers.com...
>> > From the current Forbes article The Most Expensive Homes In America at
>> > http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2002/10/10/1011home.html
>> >
>> > While 15-bedroom mansions, massive swimming pools and oceanfront views
>> > don't come cheap
>>
>> Thanks for the alert, David but I'm not in that market (yet). Still have
>> problems meeting the monthly mortgage payment for the Sullivan Compound.
>>
>> But, As Paul O'Neill said, The Genius of American Capitalism; losers go
>> under eventually. Too bad the same discipline is absent in public school
>> districts.
>
>Yeah. Too bad the same discipline is absent in the US military.
Anyone remember the term, "frag"?
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
<susu...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>But, As Paul O'Neill said, The Genius of American Capitalism; losers go
>under eventually.
But only if they lose their own money. Not if they merely lose other
peoples'.
-- Roy L
David Lloyd-Jones
>
> With such people I kinda feel entitled. Fathersmanifesto was one.
> Remember him?
No, I don't. And I'm pretty good at remembering when I get something
wrong. Ice under the North Pole? That I remember.
> Note that you snipped this *entire* definition, with its full context,
> rather than use it yourself to show my error!
I didn't snip anything: it's still there on your machine, it's still
there on my machine, and it's still out there all over the Net.
> But I'll restore the entire definition, with full context, and repeat
> a question or two that you snipped, to give you another chance to
> explain yourself *on the merits*. Fair?
Your discussion of cars and wheels is simply false.
My position is: you had said "That's not a public good, it's an
externality." My position was, and is, public goods have externalities;
for you to say "it's an externality" as a way of suggesting that this is
evidence of its not being a public good is as stupid as to suggest that
having wheels is evidence of not being a car.
The forty or sixty lines which anyone can read in your post are a
dishonest distortion of this perfectly plain and simple position.
* * *
On the general question of "definitions," I am willing to accept your
MIT Dictionary of Economics definition as being in the ballpark. I
observe, however, that you jump spastically and often from using the
definition to making illogical and silly claims about the centrality and
exlusiveness of "non-rival consumption."
"If you don't have the fact, hammer the definition. If you don't have
the definition, pick a phrase at random and hammer that." the forensics
or any third rate mail-order law school, 101.
* * *
There are many dictionaries, and you might be able to find another one
that has the words "non-rival" in its definition of "public good." Then
again, maybe not.
However the essence of something being a public good is that its costs
and benefits are not precicely aligned with each other, generally with
the benefits being more broadly distributed than the payment-type costs.
[An aside: I notice that David Friedman has slipped into an error not
the same as, but reminiscent of, the thing you, Grinch, falsely accused
me of: thinking that "public good" means "something good for the
public." Your accusation at me was so stupid as to be laughable -- and
I think you can only have typed it by not having read what I said.
[David's error, not not the same as your charge, has a bit of the same
flavor: in a recent note he has suggested that schooling is sometimes
bad, and to the extent that this is so it suggests that schooling is not
a public good. This is extremely shoddy reasoning on his part. Public
goods need not all be good -- any more than consumer goods like heroin
need to be good. Pollution is simply a public good with a negative
parameter for externalised value.]
Notice that my definition contains your sainted word "rival" nowhere.
Rival, or non-rival, are simply words used by the MIT editor; they
convey no central idea essential to the difference between narrow
payment and broad receipt of results -- which is the essentiality of
"public goods."
* * *
Grinch,
In the past you have seldom been this wilfully stupid for so long, so I
am confident you will re-read what you (and I) have written, maybe go
look in another dictionary or two, and come to your senses.
In the meantime,
Best wishes,
-dlj.
ro...@telus.net
<dd...@daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
>1. In a country that fights wars (most countries, most of the time, are
>at peace, of course) there is a highly visible test of how the military
>is doing, which provides at least some pressure for the people running
>the military to do a good job.
It is especially pointed for those who find themselves on active
battlefields...
>2. As other people have pointed out, it isn't clear we have an
>alternative to government production in the case of the military.
We do, in a sense: feudalism.
>So as
>long as we think we need to defend ourselves, we do it by the (very
>inefficient) mechanism of government production.
Inefficient compared to what? History shows that those who purchase
their defense services from mercenaries often have as much to fear
from the mercenaries as from their putative enemies. Probably the
reason the military is so "inefficient" is that it is a bit like a
first-past-the-post electoral system: the most expensive military is
one that is not quite strong enough to deter aggression.
"Whatever you do, pay the army." -- Emperor Marcus Aurelius to his
son, the supremely inadequate Commodus of "Gladiator" fame.
-- Roy L
David Lloyd-Jones
> Answer a simple question: When you administer a unit of a vaccine to
> individual A, can you thereafter administer the *same* unit of the
> vaccine to other people? At no extra cost? Or do you have to produce
> more vaccine, at extra cost, for others?
Although I'm beginning to have my doubts, I had always asumed that
Grinch was a competent lawyer. hence I assume that he knows the
cross-examination rule "don't ask a question you don't know the answer to."
Here his problem is that he thinks he knows the answer: he thinks the
answer is no. That's wrong -- except in the peculiarly narrow sense of
thinking that the vaccine injected into the arm is the point of the
whole operation.
Te point of the whole operation is not to get vaccine into people's
arms, but to spread protection against disease broadly throughout a
population.
{Grinch's aggressive self-delusion on this point is precisely homologous
with his inability to see that education and schooling are not the same
thing.}
Here is the correct answer to his question: if you vaccinate one person
against disease with an injection, it is very likely, and is generally
the case, that that vaccination will infect other people with its
protective qualities.
To elaborate just slightly: herd immunity, the phenomenon by which a
large group of animals, such as human beings, are largely or all
prot4ected from an invfection even though not all are individually the
subject of protective action, haxs two main components.
One component is that to the extent that vaccination directly stops one
vaccinated person from catching and carrying a disease, to that extent
it also cuts down on the number of "nodes" of potential re-infection.
there's a public-good angle on that: the people who get out and about
enough to be the first vaccinated are also largely the people who
couldhave goneout and about enough to have been big disease spreaders.
hence the degree to which their vaccination is protective of the whole
group is greatly disproportional to their number among the group.
Second, vaccinations are often low-grade diseases. The protection
against smallpox is chicken pox. I had my youngest daughter over to the
house this afternoon precisely to get her licked and scratched by my
cats, because this will with a very high degree of likelihood protect
her against a number of diseases in the future.
Vaccinating a reasonable proportion of any population assures that a
much larger proportion of that population will "catch the cure," will be
infected with protection.
* * *
I don't know whether Grinch writes what he writes out of ignorance of
biology, or just out of some tetanus of his logical faculties which
renders him immobile in the face of thought.
I've tried to immunise him against this sort of thing all these years,
but he seems to have been infected with whatever it is you catch from
rubbing up against susupply.
-dlj.
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>Food is a private
>good. When folks buy food third parties don't
>have to look at those people starving, and so
>compassionate third parties benefit. But that
>doesn't justify government funding of food.
It does, perhaps, justify government funding (or provision) of enough
food to prevent starvation.
>Cars are a private good. When folks buy cars
>third parties are not troubled by requests to
>share a ride. But that doesn't justify
>government provision of cars.
The problem here is a disproportion of costs and benefits. The
benefit of not being asked for rides is far less than the cost of
providing all the potential askers with cars.
>Disneyland is
>a private good. And when folks buy tickets
>and enjoy the day there, they have smiles and
>are friendly. Third parties will benefit from
>those smiles, but that doesn't justify
>government funding of Disneyland.
Here the poblem is of measurement: how much benefit do those smiles
really provide? The case with food and education is much more solid.
>Is the public good element in education
>sufficient to warrant provision by government?
And is provision rather than subsidy the most efficient way to do it?
It seems clear that while imperfect, food stamps are probably a more
efficient way to prevent starvation than government-run cafeterias
serving free food.
>The public gives back much of that public
>benefit to that student, so you should not
>count all of the beneficial third party
>effects as purely public benefit--much of
>it is "repatriated" to the student.
Much is not, and we have no way of knowing how much.
>As I was writing this, I considered giving
>individual disease prevention as a possible
>example of something with a stronger than
>average element of public good, since it
>reduces the spread of disease to unwitting
>third parties.
If you are speaking of contagious diseases, there is certainly a case
to be made for government efforts at prevention.
>In considering non-pecuniary benefits of
>education, I was reminded that education
>has at least one non-pecuniary harm on
>the public at large: a highly educated
>person may be more qualified to sneer at
>others, which is a net loss to the public.
??? Man, now you are really reaching. This is like a claim that a
beautiful woman is more likely to be conceited, so her beauty is a net
loss to the public. It is precisely _because_ education is beneficial
to the community that an educated person might feel entitled to
elevated status. Hello?
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
<dd...@daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
>In article <3DB0D88D...@rogers.com>,
> David Lloyd-Jones <dlloy...@rogers.com> wrote:
>
>> Narnia Fan wrote:
>>
>> > In considering non-pecuniary benefits of
>> > education, I was reminded that education
>> > has at least one non-pecuniary harm on
>> > the public at large: a highly educated
>> > person may be more qualified to sneer at
>> > others, which is a net loss to the public.
>>
>> Does Narnia Fan have any empirical evidence for this?
>
>For a somewhat more detailed version of the argument, you might try
>Robert Frank's book _Choosing the Right Pond_. It is an attempt to
>analyze the implications for economics of the fact that humans care
>about relative status. To the extent that Frank is correct, anything you
>do that increases the relative status of one person--such as getting him
>a better education--imposes negative externalities on everyone else, or
>at least everyone else who is in a position to rank himself in part
>relative to that one.
Sounds like another example of the Fallacy of the Seen vs the Unseen,
the exogenous conditions that grant status to the uneducated being the
Unseen.
-- Roy L
David Lloyd-Jones
> David Lloyd-Jones <dlloy...@rogers.com> wrote
> None. But I am frequently told that many or most people are
> hopelessly addicted to status...for example, that they don't
> mind hurting themselves so long as it makes others suffer
> even more. I find that repellent, but I can believe that
> there are such people.
NF,
Thanks. In fact I don't think there's much in either this post or your
earlier one that I disagree with.
You have the beginning of wisdom, seems to me, by distinguishing between
schooling and education -- as David Friedman and one or two others have
done.
To this I would only add that it's useful to make the distinction even
if you're not using it as a way of sneering at schools while glorifying
the empyrean of education: the distinction is useful in differentiating
between what goes on in classrooms and what does or does not go on in
the larger society, depending upn whether or not the classrooms exist.
(There's a second discrimination to be made, though it's not quite as
important to this rather crude economistische discussion: the difference
between schooling, which happens in classrooms, and learning, which
takes place mostly between the ears. The two are not the same, nor even
proportional, and realising that is the beginning of many, perhaps most,
real life questions of educational policy. The "Let's all abolish the
state and issue vouchers in the state of nature" sort of bullshit that
goeson around, e.g. University of Chicago, has bloody little to do with
the problems people face at their monthly meeting of the School Board or
PTA.)
* * *
I forget who first came up with the formulation "more education makes
you more qualified to sneer," which David Friedman tried to civilise as
"Which Pond..."
I agree with your "repellent". I stand by my earlier "no ethical
tradition."
As susupply shows us every day, you don't need any qualifications to sneer.
* * *
YTou ask me for a non-monetary cost of education. The main one would
seem to me pretty obvious: the vast amounts of time and sitzfleisch
wasted by bright kids forced to sit in rows supposedly in awe of stupid
teachers.
The two main activities of the human race, by person-hours, are women
carrying water and men carrying guns.
My guess would be that youngsters sitting in rows is the third, and I
think that's a horror story.
I want more education, but I don't for a moment imagine that more
schooling is the necessary and sufficient way of getting it.
-dlj.
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>David Lloyd-Jones <dlloy...@rogers.com> wrote in message news:<3DB0D88D...@rogers.com>...
>> Narnia Fan wrote:
>>
>> > In considering non-pecuniary benefits of
>> > education, I was reminded that education
>> > has at least one non-pecuniary harm on
>> > the public at large: a highly educated
>> > person may be more qualified to sneer at
>> > others, which is a net loss to the public.
>>
>> Does Narnia Fan have any empirical evidence for this?
>
>None. But I am frequently told that many or most people are
>hopelessly addicted to status...for example, that they don't
>mind hurting themselves so long as it makes others suffer
>even more. I find that repellent, but I can believe that
>there are such people.
Have you ever raised children... or been one?
>It might be
>true that education is an unalloyed good. It might be true. But
>saying so about any other project sounds like a overenthusiastic
>claim.
?? Health? Job satisfaction? Intelligence?
>So can you think of a non-monetary downside?
Societies have perished by under-education and miseducation, but I
can't think of one that has perished by over-education.
-- Roy L
David Friedman
If they lose other people's money, they find it hard to get more of
other people's money in the future. On the other hand, if a government
agency does a bad job, the problem gets worse, so obviously they need
more money to deal with it.
You will note, for example, that when school test scores drop in a
state, the response is typically for the legislature to appropriate more
money, not less.
ro...@telus.net
wrote:
>Who the hell cares whether education is _defined_ as a "public good"?
In any scientific enterprise, agreed definitions of the basic terms
are necessary before the method can be applied. Without agreed
definitions, it is not possible to make the replicable observations on
which science depends.
I would have thought this particularly germane in the present context,
as David Lloyd-Jones and Grinch are both using the word "education,"
but they are using it to mean two entirely different things. David is
talking about cultivation of mind, while Grinch is talking about
schooling.
>The important question is, as always, a political one: do we prefer a
>world with more educated people in it, or fewer? Either way, how do
>we get there?
By first understanding the issue.
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
<susu...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>"tonyp" <to...@world.std.com> wrote in message
>news:aoq51m$pvk$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
>>
>> David says "pay teachers more, and the market will provide better
>> teachers". Seems pretty logical to me, regardless whether schools are
>> public or private.
But you have to pay them more for _being_ better teachers. If you pay
longshoremen more, will you get better longshoremen, or just greedier
ones?
>Logical only to those ignorant of the history of education. Actually,
>ignorance most economic history. To pick a particularly sore point around
>here, did the Seattle Sonics get better basketball from Vin Baker when they
>showered tens of millions of dollars on him?
Better than they could have got by offering him a teacher's salary,
anyway....
>But getting back to education, public school teachers are much better paid
>today (constant dollars) than 40 years ago,
The required qualifications are higher now, and pay equity laws have
increased wages in what used to be a pink collar ghetto. That said, I
don't think teacher pay has increased as much as earnings of
comparably credentialled professionals in other fields.
>but their productivity has not
>increased at all (maybe even declined).
Classroom conditions are entirely different now. IMO it is much
harder to educate kids in a public school now than it was 40 years
ago.
>Private schools that pay lower
>salaries often have the superior teachers.
Maybe because such teachers are more likely to have the vocation.
-- Roy L
John Fast
> An expression of an ideology, basically anarchist: government is bad.
> C'mon, look around you at all the "politically" produced goods.
> Is there inefficiency? Of course? Is there inefficiency in private
> production? You bet there is. It's a close contest.
I disagree. A free market, with individual choice, is both more
efficient and more ethical than a winner-take-all system (i.e.,
government), even if the government is a democracy rather than a
dictatorship.
It's wrong for a single individual to violate the rights of the public,
but it's almost as bad for the majority to violate the rights of a
minority.
> Cut to the core: the "Republican" "conservative" "right" ideology is
> opposed to government in all its ramifications, purposes, and acts.
No, right-wing "conservatives" are not opposed to government controlling
people's social behavior, just like left-wingers (who want individual
freedom for social behavior) are not opposed to government controlling
people's economic choices.
The only people who consistently support human rights and are pro-choice
on both economic and social issues are libertarians.
--
John Fast <cal...@telocity.com>
"Raise consciousness, not taxes."
susupply
"David Lloyd-Jones" <dlloy...@rogers.com>
yet again artfully dodging the questions put to him,
wrote in message
news:yIJs9.28478$Q3S....@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> However the essence of something being a public good is that its costs
> and benefits are not precicely aligned with each other, generally with
> the benefits being more broadly distributed than the payment-type costs.
If that were the case, then virtually everything would be a public good.
Bikinis, housepaint, lawnmowers etc.
Grinch
<dlloy...@rogers.com> wrote challenging Grinch to look up *other*
sources for the definition of "public good". The suspense builds ...
(they're at the end, of course!)
>Grinch wrote:
>>
>> With such people I kinda feel entitled. Fathersmanifesto was one.
>> Remember him?
>
>No, I don't. And I'm pretty good at remembering when I get something
>wrong. Ice under the North Pole? That I remember.
>
>> Note that you snipped this *entire* definition, with its full context,
>> rather than use it yourself to show my error!
>
>I didn't snip anything: it's still there on your machine, it's still
>there on my machine, and it's still out there all over the Net.
>
>> But I'll restore the entire definition, with full context, and repeat
>> a question or two that you snipped, to give you another chance to
>> explain yourself *on the merits*. Fair?
>
>Your discussion of cars and wheels is simply false.
>
>My position is: you had said "That's not a public good, it's an
>externality."
Changing my position for me yet again, eh? ;-)
Just one post ago, DLJ wrote to Grinchy:
>>> Your ridiculous proposition was "This has externalities, so it can't be
>>> a public good."
And that's not quite the same, is it?
(Any more than "that's not a car, it's a wheel" is the same as "this
has wheels, so it can't be a car". Right?
We just substitute "wheel" for externality, and "car" for public good,
and you can see that. Right???)
>My position was, and is, public goods have externalities;
>for you to say "it's an externality" as a way of suggesting that this is
>evidence of its not being a public good is as stupid
Where did I ever say having an externality is evidence of something
not being a public good??
Quote it. If you can I'll buy you a beer.
Heck, I'd buy you a beer if you were in town anyhow, since I don't
take usenet disagreements personally.
But if you can quote me anywhere saying your: "This has externalties
so it can't be a public good", I'll *send* you a case of the brand of
your choice.
Otherwise, you owe me an apology, guy, for repeating this so often.
> as to suggest that
>having wheels is evidence of not being a car.
Yet *again* what I said several times was: The fact that something has
positive externalitites doesn't make it a public good.
"Positive externalities do not a 'public good' make", to quote me.
How you manage to read this as "If it has positive externalities it
can't be a public good" is bewildering.
Turning "The fact that it has wheels doesn't mean it's a car" into "If
it has wheels it can't be a car" is one nice twist job.
>The forty or sixty lines which anyone can read in your post are a
>dishonest distortion of this perfectly plain and simple position.
Actually, the lines had two simple questions that you snipped rather
than answer, for the what, the third time?
>
>On the general question of "definitions," I am willing to accept your
>MIT Dictionary of Economics definition as being in the ballpark. I
>observe, however, that you jump spastically and often from using the
>definition to making illogical and silly claims about the centrality and
>exlusiveness of "non-rival consumption."
>
>"If you don't have the fact, hammer the definition. If you don't have
>the definition, pick a phrase at random and hammer that." the forensics
>or any third rate mail-order law school, 101.
David, you keep fantasizing that you are arguing with me rather than
the dictionary.
"Non-rival consumption" IS the MIT dictionary's definition of a public
good. THAT'S IT.
~~
"Public good: A commodity or service which if supplied to one person
is available to others at no extra cost. A public good is therefore
said to exhibit 'non-rival consumption' as one person's consumption of
the good does not reduce its availability to anyone else ."
~~
Non-rival consumption is ALL there is to it.
So you can hardly say you are "willing to accept" the dictionary
definition -- except for silly claims as to non-rival consumption.
How silly would that be?
Now maybe the MIT Dictionary of Economics is wrong as to this. Maybe
it has lead me astray. But if you think so, just say so. That is,
when the dictionary explains the above with the following sentence...
"A 'public good' may be contrasted with a 'private good', where one
person's consumption precludes another person's consumption of the
same unit."
... do you agree with it, the dictionary, or disagree?
Give a clear answer to that and we can end the whole discussion right
here with no hard feelings.
Although it certainly won't justify your repeated bogus claim that I
ever said "This has externalities, so it can't be a public good."
>
> * * *
>There are many dictionaries, and you might be able to find another one
>that has the words "non-rival" in its definition of "public good." Then
>again, maybe not.
>
>However the essence of something being a public good is that its costs
>and benefits are not precicely aligned with each other, generally with
>the benefits being more broadly distributed than the payment-type costs.
Really?? Could you be a little more rigorous about this "essence"
(which the dictionary editors overlooked.)?
When you say "costs and benefits are not precisely aligned with each
other" -- what *exactly* do you mean by "not aligned"?
Because if you are saying the beneficiaries of it include persons
others than those who pay for it, then you are back to saying
externalities make a public good ... which sure seems like saying
something that is good for the public is a public good ... which is,
as you say below, "so stupid as to be laughable".
So please explain.
>[An aside: I notice that David Friedman has slipped into an error not
>the same as, but reminiscent of, the thing you, Grinch, falsely accused
>me of: thinking that "public good" means "something good for the
>public." Your accusation at me was so stupid as to be laughable ...
Well as long as dummies like David Friedman are making mistakes
reminiscent of mine, I won't feel so bad....
>
>Notice that my definition contains your sainted word "rival" nowhere.
>Rival, or non-rival, are simply words used by the MIT editor; they
>convey no central idea essential to the difference between narrow
>payment and broad receipt of results -- which is the essentiality of
>"public goods."
IOW, you've made up your own definition and thrown out the
dictionary's.
>Grinch,
>
>In the past you have seldom been this wilfully stupid for so long, so I
>am confident you will re-read what you (and I) have written, maybe go
>look in another dictionary or two,
Hey, I'm willing to try! Let's do a web search!....
1.) The Special Properties of a Public Good
A public good has two special properties that together necessitate its
public provision: it is non-rival and non-excludable...
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~lkeely/econ101/lectures/lecture24.pdf
2). Public Good
A private good is both rival and excludable. A good which is both
non-rival and non-excludable is called a public good...
http://www.woodgreen.oxon.sch.uk/economics/public_good.htm
3). Pure Public Good - A good which is nonrival and nonexcludable.
http://www.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ470/sandler/Glossary.pdf
4.) Summary of Public versus Private Goods
Private Good Public Good
Rival Excludable Nonrival Nonexcludable
http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/hoynes/EC130/Handout%20-%20Public%20Private%20goods.pdf
5.) Public goods
Public goods are good that are not excludable and are not rivaled. In
other words the consumption of a public good by one person doesn’t
prevent another person from consuming it and a person cannot be
excluded from consuming a public good.
http://web.utk.edu/~nlotz/Economics%20201%20Part%20III%20chpt%2010.htm
6.) Public goods, by definition, are non-rival and non-excludable.
http://web.mit.edu/14.41/www/midterma.pdf
7.) Public goods:
Public goods have two characteristics: they are non-rival and
non-exclusive...
http://economics.web.unsw.edu.au/courses/ECON5116/L1.pdf
Etc., etc. etc.
> and come to your senses.
Looks like there are a lot of university economics departments out
there that need to return to their senses with me, eh?
>In the meantime,
In the meantime, why don't you find where I took the ridiculous
position that "This has externalities, so it can't be a public good."
Someone who takes "The fact that it has wheels doesn't mean it is a
car" and twists it into "You said that if it has wheels it can't be a
car", shouldn't be too self-satisfied with his intellectual
superiority, IMHO.
But I'll buy you a beer the next time you are in town anyhow, for old
times sake.
Then we can discuss politics or religion or something meaningful, and
have a *real* fight.
Regards,
> Best wishes,
>
> -dlj.
susupply
<racqu...@nospam.hvc.rr.com>
foot-and-mouth-faulting once again,
wrote in message news:4gh6ruk9556iqq288...@4ax.com...
> I've cut the stuff that is nonresponsive to what I wrote.. Again,
> Herman, there is NO "cost" to the "consumer" here, and EVERYONE is
> guaranteed a place. Your ideology is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
It isn't the "cost" to the consumer, but the cost to produce and distribute
the good, numbskull. The cost of putting up a Stop sign is the same whether
one motorist uses it or thousands do. So, again, are you saying you can
teach 10,000 students in your classroom next term?